The 9th edition of the Microsoft-Brussels Region partnership’s Boostcamp Final revealed once more how far reaching entrepreneurship can be.

In the modern and high tech setting of the Microsoft Innovation Centre in Brussels, 7 Start-ups presented their projects in a five minute pitch. With the seconds ticking by, each Start-up defined its idea, how it would implement it, the costs, the data they had collected, the future possibilities, the teams, and the reason why they should be selected as winner of the Boostcamp9 Final.

From an app that helps pregnant women through the most stressful of times, to a service to aid landlords. Through a new concept that would change the way investment works to a new method of transferring money aimed at more disadvantaged communities all the way to a new photographic selfie concept. These Start-ups demonstrated the wide ranging choices and paths that entrepreneurship can take and the manner in which any one idea can be tailored and turned into a concrete and convincing project. It should be seen as encouraging to those thinking of launching their own business as well as those with only vague ideas in their mind. The Boostcamp9 Pitch session was not only a celebration of specific projects, but also a reminder that there are constantly new realities and issues in our world that need tweaking or spaces that need filling.

Interestingly, a general theme surrounded these various and heterogeneous programmes. Indeed, the notion of ‘pain’ was widespread, and exemplified one of the core concepts of entrepreneurial ideas. In a nutshell, the Start-ups looked at an issue that caused ‘pain’, whether in terms of stress, time and money, and thought of a way of changing this ‘pain’ into a positive outcome.

Although only one of the seven Start-ups left the ninth edition of the Boostcamp programme a winner, it was clear that this was not the end for any of these wonderful ideas.