The dream is to build a Lolland unicorn

Rasmus Svale Jørgensen is 17 years old and has already set himself a goal that reaches well beyond Year 10 at Campus Nakskov.

His project is called Campusportalen. It is a digital platform designed to bring together the practical details of everyday life in educational settings: messages, shared information, meal arrangements and an overview of who is eating when. At Campus Femern, the residential and learning environment for apprentices working on the Fehmarn Belt construction project in Rødbyhavn, apprentices are asked, for example, to say on Thursday afternoon which days they will eat on site the following week. The aim is to give the kitchen a clearer picture of demand and reduce the amount of food that ends up in the bin.

Campusportalen already has its first collaborations with Campus Nakskov and Campus Femern. Jørgensen is himself still in Year 10 at Campus Nakskov, though not for much longer, and he sees the first agreements as the beginning of something larger. In his view, the same type of solution could be used by schools, campuses and other institutions around the world where many people need the everyday logistics to work more smoothly.

“The goal is a Lolland unicorn. One hundred per cent. That is the goal,” says Rasmus Svale Jørgensen.

In start-up circles, a unicorn is the rare company that grows to a valuation of more than $1bn. Such companies are more often associated with international technology hubs, investors and growth plans on a scale far removed from a school pupil’s first venture. For Jørgensen, however, the word is primarily about ambition: building something from Lolland that can be widely used and create value for others.

In his version, the story begins in Nakskov. It also begins with problems most people recognise from everyday life. If pupils, apprentices and staff have one place to find information, daily routines become easier to manage. If the model works at Campus Femern and Campus Nakskov, he believes it can be transferred to other educational environments.

“The platform can be used all over the world. That is the ambition,” he says.

A place to prove a point

The scale of that ambition is closely linked to where he comes from. Jørgensen talks about Lolland as a place often described through its problems. At the same time, he sees an area full of people with more ability and drive than outsiders sometimes notice. Campusportalen is meant to be a digital solution to a concrete problem, but for him it is also evidence that a significant company can begin in a place such as Nakskov.

“I want to show young people that you can come from Lolland and create something big. There is a lot of focus on many negative things on Lolland, but there are also many people who are really talented and create big things. I want to do that too,” he says.

The urge to sell, test and build began early. In 2017, when he was eight years old, Jørgensen sat in the MENY supermarket in Nakskov selling fidget spinners with his brothers. In one week they made about DKr5,000. The experience became an early lesson in putting himself forward, meeting customers and finding out whether an idea could work in practice.

He later tried sportswear. That idea struggled to gain the same traction. The market was saturated, competition was fierce and the project did not take off in the same way. Jørgensen talks about the experience as something he has carried with him. A market can be too crowded, and an idea can arrive at the wrong time. The important thing, he says, is to learn something before moving on to the next attempt.

All in

That attitude also comes from home. Jørgensen describes his family as a place where it is acceptable to fail, provided you learn from it. At the same time, it is a family where people commit fully to what they choose to do.

“If you do something, you do it 100 per cent,” he says.

He talks about Campusportalen in the same way. The idea has to be tested in real life, meet users and be adjusted when everyday reality does not match the plan. To Jørgensen, the greater risk is failing to try.

“I would rather throw myself into it and fail than not make the attempt and then regret it,” he says.

From competition idea to daily use

Campusportalen began as a competition idea. Jørgensen worked on the platform through Kickstart Programme, a nationwide entrepreneurship competition for vocational education students run by the Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship. First, the idea had to be developed, sharpened and presented. Then he had to stand before judges and explain why his solution could make a difference in everyday life on a campus.

In November, the programme culminated at K.B. Hallen in Copenhagen, where Jørgensen won the competition in front of pupils, teachers, businesspeople and the industry minister. At that point, the task was to persuade others to believe in the idea. Since then, the challenge has changed. Campusportalen now has to be used by people with a daily routine to manage.

The platform already exists digitally. It has its first collaborations and a 17-year-old entrepreneur from Nakskov who talks about a market far beyond Lolland. It is simply not yet a registered company.

When that part has to be put in place, Jørgensen will need help from his father. As a 17-year-old, he cannot register a company in Denmark’s CVR business register himself, which means the dream of building a substantial company also begins with something as down-to-earth as forms, a parent’s signature and practical paperwork.

After the summer holidays, the plan is for him to begin HHX, the Danish higher commercial examination programme, while work on Campusportalen continues alongside school.