We solve problems. Whenever you see a problem you should take ownership of solving it. It’s okay not to know the answers to every question. More important is that you show a genuine eagerness to help. Remember that this is a team effort, so do not hesitate to ask for help!

Small gestures simply matter, in most cases, they are the secret to getting from meeting expectations to exceeding them. Smile, listen, and thank the customer for the feedback you receive. Embrace good humor and quick wit.

As the Slush Code of Conduct states: “Slush is meant to be a 100% inclusive experience from the beginning till the end for all our attendees, volunteers, and contributors.” Our Safety Mediators work to ensure this will be true. Their responsibility is to help solve conflicts and offer conversation help to anyone who has had a negative experience at the event.

Our Safety Mediators are licensed psychologists from Laavu. We have Safety Mediators working all of the biggest concepts:

• Founders Day
• The Main Event and the Afterparty
• Volunteer Afterparty

At the event you can reach the in two ways:

• Find them live at the venue. You can approach any of our Security personnel and ask for the mediators or go to the Security Helpdesk next to the Southern entrance. Our Security personnel will find the Safety Mediators for you and stay with you while you wait.
• Use the Chat in Slush App. You can also chat with our Safety Mediators in the Slush App chat. You can find a chat channel with the Safety Mediators by navigating to the chat in your Slush app.

You are more than encouraged to publish Slush-related content and share your volunteer experience on your social media. The official hashtag we use to share our stories is #slush2023.

Please do not publish any Slush-related content that has not been officially published on Slush channels before the Main Event. This means that taking pictures from the venue of Slush 2023, at events such as construction and Venue Tour, is strictly forbidden. However, feel free to post from Slush activities throughout the fall, e.g. from the Volunteer Day.

If media approaches you, please inform our Head of Media and PR Laura Roca (tel. +358402586937) before continuing. At the Main Event it is of course okay to answer customer service related questions from people with the Media pass. However, always kindly but decisively turn down Slush specific inquiries. All informal and formal interviews need to be approved by Slush Head of Media and PR Laura Roca.

This way you help us to stay on track on Slush related media inquiries. If you are unsure about something, ask your Group Lead/Team Lead.

• Customer service first! Understand what the journalist is asking for. If asking for media coverage or an interview, proceed to the next step.
• Thank for the interview request, but decline. Example:
  ”Thank you for asking! I unfortunately cannot answer anything right now. Can I take the matter forward by giving your contact information to the Slush PR team?”
• If urgent, contact Slush Head of Media & PR Laura Roca (tel. +358402586937). If not, contact your Group Lead or Team Lead, who will take it to Laura.
• Wait for Laura to get back to you for instructions!

Slush wants to leave the world better than we found it, whether it’s in event production, operations, social inclusion or in helping startups change to the world. To minimize our carbon footprint at Slush 2023, we aim to put focus on both smaller details like carbon-neutral cloakroom tags made of wood-based pulp, and bigger things like completely offsetting all emissions connected to the event, with the help of our partner Supercritical.
Below are five areas where we are making Slush more sustainable:

• This year we are happy to join forces with Supercritical for carbon removal offsets.
• Slush offsets all of our year-round day-to-day operations
• In addition to offsetting all conference related emissions, we have decided to compensate for emissions on behalf of the attendees – this includes all travels, domestic and international (flights, cars, trains) as well as hotels etc.
• Craving scientific facts regarding Supercritical’s process? Read more about their durable carbon removal offsets on their website here

All restaurants at Slush, including our staff restaurants, will serve delicious dishes, which all happen to be vegetarian or vegan.

BYOB! – We have 20 water points around the venue, where you can refill your own water bottle.

• Every waste station has a recycling advisor to guide our guests. Last year our recycling rate was 82%, can we beat it this year?
• This year we are introducing washable and reusable cups, which you can return to any recycling point – just make sure you don’t throw those in the trash!
• All disposables are biodegradable.

Slush 2023 merch is provided by Globe Hope, who produce sustainable garments from 100% recycled materials.

RECYCLE

• Take care of sorting your own waste (and why not others as well while at it!) There will be 35 recycling points around the venue, so it shouldn’t be too tricky to find one! Also, there’s no such thing as useless trash. Everything we recycle at Slush will be re-used in one way or another with the help of our partner Lassila & Tikanoja.
• Remember: all disposables, i.e. food items such as candy wrappers, plates and cutlery, are biodegradable at Slush!

USE PUBLIC TRANSIT TO GET TO YOUR SHIFT

Slush provides volunteers without pre-existing HSL tickets with 4x AB/ABC one-way tickets. We encourage everyone to opt for sustainable public transport. Put Messukeskus as your destination and look up your most convenient route in the HSL Journey Planner here!

SAY HI TO YOUR FELLOW SLUSHERS

Sustainability is also about creating a safe, inclusive space for everyone. See our Code of Conduct for more on this.

KEEPING THE VENUE TIDY

Our partner Lassila & Tikanoja is the main cleaning company in Messukeskus during the event. In the Siipi wing of Messukeskus, SOL is the main cleaning company. Cleaners are working constantly in the venue to keep it clean, and in normal situations no actions are needed from you. If visitors ask for your help with cleaning, or you see something that should be cleaned:

• Think if you can clean the mess yourself.
• If a professional is required for the cleaning, tell the visitor that you will take care of this as soon as possible, and do the following:
  • Ask the cleaners working in your area for help.
  • If you don’t see the cleaners, ask your Team Lead to make a cleaning request for you, or ask your Group Lead to contact your Team Lead.

No need to panic or make the situation bigger! You are not the only one making cleaning requests. That said, remember to always be patient and try to solve the issues yourself as far as possible, without neglecting your main tasks.

The Program team is at the center of one of Slush’s most visible parts of the event: Speakers and stages. Program team volunteers make sure our speakers have a smooth and superb experience attending Slush and visiting Helsinki. These are the volunteer roles in the Program team:

• Stages
• Mentoring Area
• Speaker Buddies
• Drivers

People come to Slush to meet relevant people for their ventures – and we’ve taken it to our heart to provide the world’s best meeting experience for them. We connect 1) startups <> investors, 2) investors <> investors, and 3) startups <> partners. Meeting Operations volunteers make sure everyone using the Meeting Area at Slush has a superb experience. They also gather feedback from the customers. These are the volunteer roles in the Meeting Operations team:

• Meeting Experience
• Meeting Area

The Investor team is responsible for attracting the world’s leading venture capital investors to Slush, and creating the best investor experience of any event on the planet for them. Investor team volunteers work on the concepts and events offered to the investors visiting Slush and make sure they get excellent customer service in every encounter with Slush. These are the volunteer roles in the Investor team:

• Investor Lounge Area
• Investor Experience Events
• LP Operations
• Investor Side Events
• Investor Day

The Startup Team has the exciting responsibility of taking care of our largest core visitor group – the startup founders and operators. This is done with concepts like Founders Day, Slush 100, Startup Studio, Nordic Showcase, and Startup Booths to mention a few. Startup team volunteers make sure all founders are treated like royalty in every encounter they have with Slush. These are the volunteer roles in the Startup team:

• Startup Booths
• Slush 100
• Startup Studio
• Founders Day
• Startup Activities

The Slush Production Team’s main goal is to guarantee Slush a seamless customer journey through the biggest and most complex event production in Finland for all our 13,000 visitors. Production volunteers work on making sure we do the basics better than others. From the badge claim at the airport to the cloakroom, production customers serve our customers at critical points of the customer journey. Also, if you’d like to get your volunteering done before the event consider teams like construction and pre-badge claim! These are the volunteer roles in the Production team:

• Recycling
• Badge Pre-Print
• Pre-Badge Claim
• Event Badge Claim
• Cloakroom
• Hydration
• Production Help
• Construction

Slush’s Finance volunteers have the opportunity to work at the Slush Store, the coolest clothing store in Pasila. The store sells merchandise from the event. This is the volunteer role within the Finance team:

• Slush Store

Studio is a combination of the Marketing and Design team, like two peas in a pod. We work closely together to create and curate the external and visual communications for Slush. Studio volunteers film, photograph, and write content from the event. Also the Customer Success team makes sure our customers online and in Messukeskus get answers to their questions. These are the volunteer roles in the Studio team:

• Content Curators
• Live Streams
• Online Customer Success
• Quick Visual Content
• Text Production
• Videography
• Photography
• Offline Customer Success

The Media & PR team has two core responsibilities at Slush: attracting the world’s leading media representatives to Slush and creating the best media experience of any event on the planet for them, and building compelling narratives to showcase Slush as an organization to media. Media & PR volunteers make sure all guests in these concepts have a stellar customer experience. These are the volunteer roles in the Media & PR team:

• Media Experience
• Media Side Events

Volunteer Area volunteers make sure we serve our volunteers just as superbly as we serve our customers. They work in the dedicated Volunteer Area where volunteers get to chill, network, and have fun. This is the volunteer role within the People team:

• Volunteer Area

The Partnerships Team brings the world’s leading corporates, scale-ups, country delegations, and research labs to be involved in Slush activities as partners. Partnerships volunteers make sure all partners have a stellar experience with Slush in each encounter. These are the volunteer roles in the Partnerships team:

• Partner Side Event Ops
• Partner Day
• Partner Badge Claim
• Partner Buddies

• We believe it is those who have built iconic startups who provide the most valuable advice for founders. That’s why we’ve gone above and beyond to bring some of the most successful company builders in the world to Slush to share their lessons in building legendary companies. Speakers this year include Claire Hughes Johnson, Chief Corporate Advisor of Stripe, Tony Xu, Co-founder & CEO of DoorDash, Cal Henderson, CO-founder & CTO of Slack, and Shuo Wang, Co-founder & CRO of Deel.
• In addition, this year we’ve put effort into curating the best & most diverse topic-focused stage program Slush has ever seen. From solar panels and quantum computers to sex tech and AI – not to mention the ever-popular B2B SaaS – we promise that there’s something for everyone to learn from and enjoy.
• People will ask you which speakers or stage talks you are looking forward to most. Prepare to have a few names in mind (it’s a bonus if you can also remember what they’ll talk about & when)!
• Joining Slush’s mission of helping founders, each speaker dedicates one hour of their time to mentoring during the event. During the two event days, founders have the chance of participating in Speaker Q&A’s, roundtable discussions and 1on1 mentoring, gaining invaluable insights and access to mentors otherwise unavailable to them.

• Slush 2023 is the world’s largest gathering of venture capital, bringing together 3,000 investors with more than $3T in AUM (assets under management). Both of these numbers are higher than ever before at any Slush event.
• Some of the top VC firms joining us again this year include Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark, NEA, and Sequoia (the list goes on). A couple of exciting top-level newcomers are Greylock & Khosla Ventures.
• This year, we’re taking our investor offering to a whole new level with the new and improved Investor Day, aiming to strengthen the VC networks in Europe. Furthermore, we’re staying more true than ever to our founder focus by putting effort into gatherings that connect investors with startups at large, such as Investor Office Hours together with funds like Index Ventures.
• Last but definitely not least, we have more Limited Partners (LP’s) at Slush this year than ever before. In this economical climate, supporting emerging managers and bringing international capital to Finland and Europe has never been more important. Around 200 LP’s will be joining Slush, including institutional investors and charitable endowments such as LGT, Top Tier, Northwestern University & MIT.

• We have more startups than ever joining us at Slush: 5,000 founders & operators will fill the Messukeskus halls.
• Our startups are also more international than ever: more than 75% of our startups come from outside of Finland, and after our home turf, Germany, Great Britain, Sweden and the US are the most common geographies that our startups come from.
• Startup Studio will once again showcase a mixture of early-stage startups, operating in future-defining fields such as AI, biology, space and energy. We’re especially proud of having the most diverse lineup ever of both companies and founders on stage: we have as many African as Finnish companies represented (8 each), and the ratio of female speakers is 42%, up from 22% last year.
• With an improved process & bigger focus on supporting the participating startup during each stage, Slush 100 is on a great trajectory to become a stamp of approval similar to getting into Y Combinator. A great win for us is that all five participating funds from 2022 are continuing to work with us on the competition this year, with the aim of finding & funding the next European unicorn.
• The range of events and other concepts designed to help early-stage founders is wider than ever before. From Founders Day to the Late Stage Dinner to a deep-tech gathering to our six hyper-relevant Slush Official Side Events, every founder regardless of industry or stage will be able to find incredibly relevant ways of spending their time at Slush.

• Investors and startups alike come to Slush to meet each other. This year, we’re making that easier than ever before through our matchmaking tool, built in-house by our fantastic team. What’s more, we’re in the early days of building the world’s largest year-round database on early-stage startups. In other words, we’re on a path to change the way deals flow.
• This year, we’ve chosen to focus on a few select things to further improve the Slush meeting experience. Firstly, we’ve focused on increasing the meeting request response rate, by actively educating our audience to use our tools and providing better features for inbox management. Secondly, we’ve made significant improvements to the experience at the event by bringing the development of the Slush App in-house. Through the app, all of our visitors will be able to book, reschedule, and find their meetings effortlessly while at the main venue.
• In 2023, we also have something completely new to offer investors joining Slush: the Investor Tool, designed specifically to help investors find, filter & export data of startups joining Slush.
• We are the biggest organizer of 1on1 meetings adjusted for attendee count in the event industry — 1,000 meetings per hour take place during the main event.
  In 2023, we’re expecting more than 20,000 meetings to take place at Slush, of which most will be held at our record-large 300-table Meeting Area.

• This year, we’ve increased both the number of journalists attending as well as the relevancy of the outlets compared to 2021 & 2022. Some top outlets joining us this year include Forbes, the Financial Times, Insider, Axios, the Economist & Bloomberg.
• Secondly, we’re providing the best ever event experience for the journalists joining us: from curated program on Day 0 & a highly functional Media Area to press Q&A’s & moderation opportunities, journalists will finally be able to experience Slush at a level on par with our other core audiences.
• Finally, we’re helping early-stage startups get media visibility by highlighting them in Stage Announcements and connecting them with journalists directly through the Startup PR-actice & the Media Bank. The Media Bank is an absolutely beautiful part of our platform

At Slush, we are dedicated to research that fuels the European startup community. For the 9th year in a row, we’re co-authoring the State of European Tech report together with Atomico, which will be unveiled on stage during Day 1. For the second consecutive year, we’re also partnering up with Creandum in conducting their Founder Salary Survey, aiming to bring transparency to the topic.

• Deriving from our theme, this year we use organic and eternal elements from nature in our production: keep an eye out for rock, sand, water, plants, and even ice, to name a few.
• Our event this year will be ridiculously well-functioning: we’ve taken feedback from previous years to heart, and put extra resources into really making our event operations a 7-star experience. From badge claim to the food court and beyond, the event will run like a well-oiled machine.

Who on earth would organize a festival in November in Helsinki? The Slush team, of course. For the first time post pandemic, the Slush Afterparty will fill the halls of Messukeskus on Day 2, from 6 pm until late. As our headliner & Eurovision song contest hero Käärijä puts it: it’s crazy, it’s party.