Slovenian hackers seek investors!
“Roving Slovenian Hackers Turned Away by Facebook & Google, But Welcomed at TechCrunch” is a title of TechCrunch story that draw unexpected attention to a group of 12 Slovene students on a visit in Silicon Valley. It also spread quickly, both on Twitter and among many TechCrunch readers. This should not surprise most of us: 44,900 Facebook users like TechCrunch. Thanks to the new personalized tools and the button of ‘like,’ I have also learned that three TechCrunch ‘likers,’ previously fans, are friends of mine: Matti, Johanna and Bettina (I hope you don’t mind). But I am the first to like the Slovenian-hacker story officially; something that must be stored forever in my Facebook profile.
The Slovenian-hacker story spread quickly among Slovenian readers. The Twitter version tweaked my journalist’s attention. I did a radio feature for Radio Slovenia. ‘Hackers’ are students of the Faculty for Computer and Information Science at University of Ljubljana” and ‘Roving’ in the TechCrunch news title refers to a fact they are on their a senior student trip. Their entrepreneurship has already been acknowledged: sponsors are covering a substantial amount of their travel costs, though students refuse to disclose the amount raised. Soon they will be raising money again, this time from venture capitalists. They are learning fast.
Needless to say, they were savvy at calling attention to themselves. In a short TechCrunch interview, they offered readers a deal: “We will code for a week for anyone who has a cool idea to code!” More than 20 interesting ideas were submitted, but a dozen ‘hackers’ decided to follow their own paths. They would like to develop a new and revolutionary tourism-guide application for the iPhone. “Lonely planet exists on iPhone,” hacker Jakob Marovt says, “but it is really not taking advantage of mobile platform.” Or crowd sourcing.
Meanwhile, Slovenia remains the only EU country in which Apple is not selling iPhones. Apple’s absence could give Android developers (Android is sold there) a chance to reach Slovenian users. The Apple app store economy, however, remains more appealing and profitable, say students. However, iPhone OS and Android smartphones are really not really as useful in Slovenia as they are in Silicon Valley, at least from my observation. Put candidly, in the Valley there is virtually no life situation without an iPhone application.
Some students are sure they will return to Silicon Valley soon. They say that they are inspired by other compatriots that have succeeded in Silicon Valley startups. They include Skygrid, Zemanta and Noovo. Though they couldn’t visit Google, Facebook or f8 conference, many doors were open and will remain so.
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