Donate to support Entrepreneurship and Innovations

Entrepreneurship and innovations – A Cornerstone of a Thriving Society

By donating to the Entrepreneurship and Innovations focus area, you support a sustainable future – and the people who are building it. People who dare to experiment boldly, even when the outcome is uncertain. 

As a donor, you become part of a chain of enablers providing spaces, mentoring, inspiration, and expertise to an ever-growing startup-generation. 

Your donation fosters entrepreneurial thinking among our students and researchers, and drives forward innovations such as microscopy technology for cancer treatment and energy-efficient solutions for electric vehicle battery recycling, just to mention a few.

Donate to advance entrepreneurship and innovations

By donating to Entrepreneurship and innovations

1. you support the development of a sustainable future and creative individuals who'll get us there
2. you help create space for creativity, applied science, and entrepreneurial thinking
3. you enable the transformation of innovations into viable businesses, and become part of building future success stories. 

Why donations are needed? 

Donations in this area are used for developing and further extending entrepreneurship education and for training and mentoring startup founders.

Donations are needed, for example, to support research groups in taking their research to the next level and making their first invention disclosure. This phase is a crucial step towards patenting.

Research results must be brought to a concrete level, demonstrating the innovation's functionality in a new product or concept (proof of concept). Funding is also needed for these critical validation and pre-commercialisation phases. 

Typically the funding needed is between €10.000 and €20.000 per project. In practice, this means that if, for example, the approximately 2.100 new master’s graduates each year invested in the future employers by donating just € 10, we would already have enough seed funding for one, or even two, innovation-driven startups.

Even small donations are meaningful when donors are many.

Donate to advance entrepreneurship and innovation.

In 2010, an advanced course in space technology figuratively launched Finland's first satellite – the literal launch occurred in Midsummer 2017. In 2025, dozens of Finnish satellites are orbiting the Earth and Otaniemi has become a bustling space campus, home to an ESA accelerator and numerous companies in the field of space technology. One of these companies is Iceye, which has grown to unicorn proportions and has its roots in the student cohort of Aalto-1 satellite course.

We witness similar inspiring and promising initiatives every year, for example, the Design Factory at the heart of the campus hosts an annual product development course where multidisciplinary teams of students solve real-life challenges set by business partners. With a budget of €10 000, the course has produced inventive ideas ranging from edible packaging to a high-precision crane, and from a 3D body scanner to a dog-training robot. 

Craftsmanship, problem solving and confidence, prototyping, ideation and design thinking are taught also in many other courses. One of these is Sähköpaja, open to all students and one of Aalto's most popular courses year after year, where students work in teams to create inventive electronic devices. In the mechatronics project courses, students build smart devices ranging from automatic coffee powder dispensers to wearable health technology.

We help researchers to mature their inventions and apply for patent protection, and to transfer technology to startups or larger companies. The Aalto Startup Center strengthens the commercial conditions of emerging companies and connects students, researchers, startup-founders and financiers.

Considering a larger donation?

If you are considering giving 10 000 euros or more, please get in touch with Sinikka Heikkala.