Microtask Explained

Type:Private
Foundation:January 2009
Founder:Ville Miettinen, Harri Holopainen, Otto Chrons, Panu Wilska
Location City:Helsinki
Location Country:Finland
Industry:Crowdsourcing
Homepage:microtask.com (now used by a different company)

Microtask was a Finnish technology company founded by Ville Miettinen, Harri Holopainen, Otto Chrons and Panu Wilska in 2009[1] to create a technology platform for crowdsourcing and distributed work.[2] The company went bankrupt 2021.[3]

The company was headquartered in Helsinki, and had offices in Tampere and San Francisco.

Microtask was selected as one of the finalists of the Nordic Tech Tour 2010.[4]

Products

Microtask Platform is a software platform for global distribution of short-duration tasks to online workers. The system supports automated quality assurance and provides service-level agreements for task quality and turnaround times.[5] The most notable use case for such tasks has been human-assisted optical character recognition.[6]

People

CEO Ville Miettinen and Managing Director Harri Holopainen were co-founders of Hybrid Graphics, a Finnish graphics technology company acquired by NVIDIA in 2006.[7] CTO Otto Chrons was the co-founder and CTO of Ionific (merged with Botnia Hightech and acquired by Sasken Communication Technologies[8]).

The company is funded by private investors and the venture fund Sunstone Capital, which is represented by board member Nikolaj Nyholm, a Danish serial technology entrepreneur and investor.

Customers

The National Library of Finland uses the Microtask Platform for outsourcing its digitization work to volunteers.[9] [10]

External links

Notes and References

  1. http://www.arcticstartup.com/2010/08/24/microtask-closes-a-super-seed-round-from-sunstone-capital-followed-by-angels Arctic Startup: Microtask closes a super seed round from Sunstone Capital followed by angels
  2. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/business/31digi.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=microtask&st=cse New York Times: When the Assembly Line Moves Online
  3. https://konkurssit.com
  4. http://www.arcticstartup.com/2010/06/15/nordic-tech-tour-kicked-off-presenting-the-top-firms-in-the-region Arctic Startup: Nordic Tech Tour Kicked Off Presenting The Top Firms In The Region
  5. http://gigaom.com/2010/10/08/is-microtask-the-future-of-work/ GigaOm: Is Microtask the Future of Work?
  6. http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/10/crowdsourcing-specific-microtasks.html O'Reilly Radar: Crowdsourcing Specific Microtasks
  7. [NVIDIA]
  8. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1812910.cms India Times: Sasken acquires Finnish firm
  9. http://www.arcticstartup.com/2010/10/15/revamping-the-finnish-national-library Arctic Startup: Revamping the Finnish National Library
  10. http://www.arcticstartup.com/2011/02/08/microtask-launches-digitalkoot-a-service-to-correct-digitized-finnish-national-library-archives Arctic Startup: Microtask Launches Digitalkoot, A Service To Correct Digitized Finnish National Library Archives