4YFN: 6 Eye-Catching Startups
OneCoWork Marketing Interns
05 March 2019
Last week, MWC hosted its annual 4 Years From Now expo in Barcelona from Monday 25th to Wednesday 27th February at Fira Montjuic, in between Plaza España and the beautiful Magic Fountain. 4YFN is an event focused on startups, where creative minds, unique ideas and ambitious entrepreneurs all blend together. With tons of networking events, over 20,000 attendants and well-known speakers from big companies around the globe, 4YFN 2019 was incredible, to say the least!
In addition to our staff and members attending the event, OneCoWork was present with our very own pop-up coworking space! We offered our visitors 8 fixed desks and some soft areas, allowing them to get some work done, relax, grab a free coffee and charge their devices. 4YFN attendants quickly found out our coffee machine was producing the best coffee at the event, which gave us the chance to meet some awesome new startups. We sent our team out to interview some of them so we could share these innovative startups with you!
‘We Chill Out’ was the stand to visit after walking miles around the event of 4YFN; they had a little chill spot for people to relax or work on their tasks.
We Chill Out is all about finding the perfect balance between working and relaxing. “With workshops, we teach our customers different techniques so they can practice ways of relaxation on a daily basis,” Maria, the Founder and CEO, told us. “As of now, we are mostly focused on B2B, but also partly B2C.”
‘Back a few years ago, I was in a crisis with myself. I then decided to take the courage to look inside myself, and when you identify yourself from inside, nothing else matters. I realized I want to do something with this.’
We Chill Out is ambitious. “We want to build a platform and grow. Right now we are at 4 Years From Now, maybe in four years we will be at the Mobile World Congress, who knows?”
As if this area of the event is all about relaxing! A few steps away from We Chill Out, we noticed a 4YFN attendant lying on a bed with a sci-fi-like device on his eyes. Now that looked interesting! We introduced ourselves to UMAY Care, a startup business from Canada, And we got to learn all about this device and the story to it.
UMAY Care created a product focused on the importance of the eyes. When the founder of UMAY Care, Ali Habib, was diagnosed with Digital Eye Strain (DES) by co-founder and sister, Sharmin Habib, “UMAY Care was born.”
“On an average day, a person spends over 10 hours on digital screens, which decreases our ability to blink.” Blinking is so important because “it is all about the natural oils, which our eyes stay hydrated with.‘You can compare it to butter. If you leave the butter in the fridge, it is solid and difficult to take off with the knife. If you leave it on the table, it becomes less solid, more liquid-like and easier to spread. Our eyes are just like that when being exposed to screens for a long time, limiting our blinking.’
The device helps to reset the eyes after a long day, by producing a certain amount of heat. We were able to try out the device at their stand and enjoy a nice rest on the bed they had set up. A few 4YFN visitors even fell asleep while using the device! .’
UMAY Care enjoyed their time at 4YFN, “especially the digital new ideas you see around here.” Now only located in Canada, they certainly want to globalize while growing. “We would perhaps like to expand to Asia and Europe someday. If we come to Spain, we know where to find OneCoWork!”
MyHealth Watcher is an app for your phone that tells you what you should and should not purchase from the grocery store to consume. “While scanning products with our app, the app will turn red, yellow or green. If it turns green, the product is safe for you to consume. If the app turns yellow, it comes with some risks to it. And if it turns red, you should avoid it but the app will also show you relevant products that are safe for you,” said Oriol, the representative at 4YFN. He explained that the app bases this on the information you write when first opening the app, such as age, weight and cholesterol rate.
The Founder and CEO, Joan, created this app in his quest to help people. The idea certainly has a lot of potential and the people of MyHealth Watcher are feeling inspired by the 4YFN event. “The event has been great! We met a lot of interesting people. And there are so many startups related to health, all with different ideas.”
Soccer Dream is a Virtual Reality device for football players to practice, train and improve their skills. The device allows you to choose which skills you want to focus on and even create your own plan. The skills include perception, anticipation and decision making.
The Football IQ technology will track how you are doing and give you reports on your progress. There is even an app where the coaches can monitor their players and edit their training plans.
The team of SoccerDream has experience with many big football clubs, one of the biggest being Inter Milan.
This is a watch specially made for the elderly or people with disabilities. It has technologies including fall detection, heart rate monitor, two-way calls. SOS button, medication reminder, safe zone and GPS tracking. “It is a health-monitored smartwatch that saves lives,” Founder and CEO Jacob Moshinsky told us.
In the case of an emergency, the watch will immediately notify any family members that have been set up as emergency contacts.
He created this product after first-hand experiencing what it was like to not be able to make it to your loved one in time to help them. Above all, this watch provides peace of mind for families.
MRESENCE means ‘presence in mixed reality.’ It is an app that allows you to communicate and get help with a variety of problems through mixed reality (a combination of physical and digital reality) by “incorporating your visual hand into the conversation.”
When using MRESENCE there is typically an Advice Seeker and an Advice Giver. The Advice Seeker will use the app to report some type of problem that they may need help with, i.e. changing a tire on a car. Then, the app will connect the Seeker with someone that can help, the Advice Giver.
The Seeker will use their smartphone to show the Giver the flat tire which will show up on the Giver’s phone in real time. This is where things get really cool. The Giver will be able to point in front of their camera to show the Seeker what to do and their hand will show up on the Giver’s screen. The Seeker will be able to easily see how to change their tire instead of just receiving verbal instructions.
This is just one small way that MRESENCE is being used! The representative at 4YFN explained that this technology “gives us the opportunity to educate different fields, such as maintenance, training, installation/inspection and health, where we are having our big demand right now.” A couple of examples are that it can be used by paramedics to give CPR instructions before they arrive, or even by someone to act as a journalist and report a car crash to the news.
As our world becomes increasingly digital, so does the future of work. More companies are ditching their headquarters for remote working. This is wonderful in so many ways, but there is only so much inspiration that can come from a screen.
Great work is done in inspiring places. Sometimes, we even think the greatest work is done not only when you are in a good space but when you are surrounded by inspiring people.
OneCoWork is proud to provide coworking spaces that have both: an environment that will inspire you from the physical space to the community of people.
Bre Gajewski, Jort Huitema and Agathe Grosbois are OneCoWork Marketing Interns from the US, Holland and France, respectively. They each attended 4YFN as part of their internship, learning about and engaging with startups from across the world.
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