A Bloc becomes a “living lab” for Aalto students: Entrepreneurial Futures course and Cafetoria join forces in pop-up collaboration

From 17–28 November 2025, Cafetoria’s pop-up offered coffee, freshly baked goods such as croissants and cakes, and award-winning gelato in A Bloc’s pop-up space – but behind the counter, something more was happening. Twelve master’s students from Aalto University’s Sustainable Entrepreneurship programme were using the space as a “living lab” to explore the future of experiential and place-based commerce.

From future visions to a real-life pop-up at A Bloc

The Entrepreneurial Futures course, taught by lecturer in Entrepreneurship Apurva Ganoo, is structured around two time horizons: imagining commerce ten years into the future, and then taking concrete action in the present. During the first weeks of the course, students worked with Sitra’s Futuremaker’s Toolbox and future backcasting methods to envision how physical spaces such as cafés, markets and pop-ups can create memorable experiences, emotions and connections that go beyond the products themselves.

In the final two weeks, those ideas were tested in real life at A Bloc.
“Many times, we ask the students to ‘choose a problem or identify a problem’, but here we could immediately throw them into the problem space,” says Ganoo. “Working with A Bloc and a local café like Cafetoria allowed them to apply valuable research methods — observations, probes, interventions — in a real, running environment.”

Master’s student Tzu Tai Huang reflects on the experience from a student point of view:
“More than just proposing ideas on paper, this collaboration demonstrated that quick, tangible changes can be made even within given restrictions. The intersection of top-down research methods and bottom-up actions showed how we can start adapting innovative approaches in practice.”

For Cafetoria, a Nordic–Latin specialty coffee roastery with a long-standing presence at the Aalto University campus, the collaboration was equally enriching. Known for its artisan coffee, handmade pastries, and Gelatoria gelato brand, Cafetoria saw the pop-up as a chance to both meet new customers at A Bloc and learn alongside the students.

“Our pop-up at A Bloc was not only about sharing our values and food craftsmanship. It was also about collaboration — and we were proud to be partnering with master’s students who are exploring the future while understanding the challenges of the present,” Cafetoria’s team reflects. “We were learning too, and quite a lot.”

A Bloc as a platform for campus collaboration

For A Bloc, this was the first time the pop-up space was used in this way — as an applied learning environment integrated into a university course. The experiment showed how campus retail spaces can become platforms for innovation and entrepreneurship in practice.

“The cooperation worked very well,” Ganoo notes. “Working with a small, family-owned, product-based business gave the students a different perspective compared to typical digital high-growth startup cases. And because A Bloc is already on campus, students felt familiar with the environment and could get started quickly with research and ideation.”

The positive experience has already sparked ideas for the future.
“Definitely, I would consider a similar collaboration again,” says Ganoo. “This year’s course was very short, with only two weeks for the pop-up. In the future, I would like to extend the duration so that students and businesses have more time to collaborate and, importantly, to notice the effects of their changes and initiatives. Many other courses could benefit from having a ‘live’ context like this, especially when the businesses are already on campus.”

“We are delighted that our pop-up space at A Bloc could support this kind of collaboration between teaching, research and entrepreneurship,” says Jenna Isokuortti, Head of Leasing and Customer Experience at Aalto University Campus & Real Estate. “We look forward to developing similar concepts with Aalto University and our tenants – and to welcoming more “living lab” experiments that bring learning, business and campus life even closer together.”