The project is done!

The final events of Demola Autumn 2016 were last week. On Thursday 12.1.2017 all the teams presented their pitches to other teams and to the companies and teachers. Our team was still finalizing and practicing the pitch during the morning and missed the first batch, where about half of the teams were presenting pitches. Our batch started around 15.00 and we were the first team to show our results. Henriikka and Matilda had been working with the pitch beforehand they also presented it. Me and Mikko were listening excited and nervous in the audience. The pitch went great and we got really good feedback from the judges. As Ohad said, our pitch set the bar high for the other groups. We stayed and listened the other pitches too and there were really good ones with interesting subjects.

Matilda and Henriikka had some biobags with them in the pitch!

After the pitching event, we grabbed some Indian food before the Graduation party. In the graduation, there were some drinks and snacks and we discussed freely with other Demola teams. After some while the distribution of awards began. Many teams got awards of their successful projects and we were nominated of the pivot project. We were really happy about it and wanted then to hear what team was going to win the award of the best project in Demola Autumn 2016. We listened the arguments of the best project, which told that this year the best project wasn’t a very technical product but a simple solution to a simple need and that the product would be very beneficial to the Pirkanmaa region. And then they pronounced the name of the winning team and it was SMART WASTE FLOW!! We couldn’t really believe that it was our team who won. We were both happy and stunned and we couldn’t stop laughing because we didn’t still believe it was really us who were the best! Winning this award was unreal and it really felt that even though we had some difficulties during the project and we had to change the subject, we still could create something successful and valuable. We are all very proud and happy! This was a great end to our journey together.   

Smart Waste Flow!

The awards.

On the following day, Friday 13th, we went to the office of Pirkanmaan Jätehuolto to present the final idea. The meeting went very well and the company was satisfied with the results. After the two intensive days the whole team was extremely happy with the project (and the best project award!) but we were a bit sad that our international team members had to leave before Christmas and were not present in the final events. Nevertheless, every member contributed to the results and now were are curious to see what will happen with Oskar! :)

Link to Demola's blog post about the winning team: 

http://tampere.demola.net/news/smart-waste-flow-winner-campaign

The team (Aili not in the picture).

- Kaisa -

Useful tools for any Demola project

During this autumn, our team made two different campaigns to get more information on biowaste sorting and on potential users of the product that we were creating. Here are the summaries of those two campaigns!

The Survey

In November we did a survey that was sent to friends and colleagues of our team members. The idea of the survey was to get some insights why people are not sorting biowaste and what would encourage them to sort it. Some questions and answers are listed below.

Answers to the survey: 47

Number of residents living in the apartment:

• 1 resident 21%
•  2 residents 52%
• 3 residents 10%
• 4 or more residents 17%

 Apartment type:

• Apartment buildings 66%
• Row house 9%
• One family house 21%

 What would motivate you to sort biowaste better?

•  More space for biowaste bin
• If the process would be easier
•  Better biobags
• Knowing the consequences of not sorting biowaste
• Easy to use bin
• If it didn’t smell so bad 
• A bin/biobags that prevent the fruit flies
• Own composter
•  A collection point closer
•  Reward, money

 If you don’t sort your biowaste, why is that?

• No place to put the biowaste in 
•  Biowaste collection point is too far/in the wrong direction
• It smells and brings fruit flies
• Too little biowaste

What is your biggest problem with sorting biowaste? (The amount of answers in brackets)

• Messines (5)
• Bad biobags/leaking (8)
•  The effort of disposing biowaste frequently/laziness (5)
• No space/biobin (9)
• Not enough biowaste (3)
• Smell (6)
• Fruit flies (3)
• Knowledge (3)

 Do you have any idea how the biowaste sorting could be developed?

• Robotic waste management
• Better biobags/free baobabs
• Better containers/less smelly/no flies
• Kitchen design and more space for biowaste container
• Awareness of the importance of sorting waste/campaign
•  Money, sanction if not sorted

All in all, the survey was a big succeess because with the results we were able to create the Oskar biowaste bin idea. People were struggling with leaking biobags that smelled and there was also too little space to put the biowaste. Based on these answers we wanted to create a table-top bin that had a lid to prevent bad smells from spreading to the kitchen. 

                       

The Facebook Ad Campaign

Before the Christmas Holidays, our team decided to run a Facebook ad campaign. The Facebook campaign for our product Oskar was running for three consecutive days, during which we targeted different customer segments. The goal was to measure how these different groups were interested in our product. We had three different segments and each segment was measured per day. The campaign was targeted to people living in Pirkanmaa region. The segments based on different interests were:

• Sustainability: environmentalism, WWF, green politics recycling, climate change etc.
• Parents: parenting, day care, childhood etc.
• Students: Pirkanmaa area universities, student politics, students etc.

Making the Facebook ad campaign was really educational and the team learned a lot about online advertising and clickthrough rates (CTRs). First, we made the Facebook ad and the ad was in Finnish since most of the potential users were from Finland.

The Facebook ad.

Secondly, we made a new website where people would be directed when clicking on the ad. This new website contained some information of the Oskar product and the whole Demola project.

The logo for the Oskar product.

The link to the Oskar website: https://smartwasteflow.wordpress.com

The average CTR for the whole campaign was 0,28 %, which means that 0,28 % of those people who saw the ad clicked on it. The campaign was run with only a small amount of money, which is why it didn't get that many links. However, we gained some new important insights. The number of clicks was relatively same between the different segments. Interestingly, women clicked on the ad more than men, which indicated that the idea got more attention among women. These insights gave us information on how to potentially market the product and design it even further. 

The Demola project is soon finished and we are preparing for the final pitch event. Still a lot to do but we are excited the present the idea!

- Henriikka -