The Brussels-based startup MuuseLabs won one of the prizes of the most prestigious international creative startups competitions
Tuesday, November 22, 2016 — This year, MuuseLabs' project Jooki, a smart jukebox for kids, was honored to be the official representative of Belgium at the international finals of the Creative Business Cup that took place these 20 and 21 November in Copenhagen, Denmark. Quickly noticed by the jury, Jooki won the ACE Creative Challenge. ACE Creative is an ambitious initiative that aims to stimulate the growth of the ICT-driven creative industries in Europe.
Based in Brussels, Belgium - MuuseLabs is a family tech consumer electronics company. It develops Jooki - The Jukebox for Kids - a wireless speaker with an intuitive figurine-based interface where each figurine is a playlist. Jooki is fully standalone and plays files stored locally (sourced from CDs or iTunes) and also supports wifi streaming and Bluetooth.
Children operate Jooki by putting “Stars” on it. These Stars are figurines and tokens, and act as physical bookmarks to digital audio. Each toy includes an NFC chip that links to a playlist, podcast or web-stream. Parents manage what their children listen to by way of an app to upload music to Jooki and link Stars to it.
Funded on Kickstarter, Jooki is a fun music player that anyone can use anywhere, anytime. It is designed to share the magic of music with the entire family, including the youngest ones.
For the last 4 years, Belgium is a partner country of the Creative Business Cup, a prestigious international competition for creative startups that have the ambition of being distinghished internationally. The principe is simple: over sixty partner countries select their best candidate representing the creative industries in their territory. For Belgium, ST'ART, the investment fund for the cultural and creative industries fund, is the National Host, and is surrounded by experts in the guidace and funding of startups to identify the project that will be best represent the quality of the belgian creative entrepreneurship.
At this year's Creative Business Cup, Jooki has been quickly noticed by the jury and won the ACE Creative Challenge. The jury said:
"This year the ACE Creative Award goes to a company that leverages wireless technology in a way that frees children from the screen. The product is beautifully designed and taps into a growing yet vacant customer segment. The Jury is excited to see how, with an openness to explore and exploit the content opportunities the technology offers, this company will redefine how children discover music and audio content. We wish the winner success growing worldwide."
Thédore Marescaux, CEO of MuuseLabs said:
"We are honored to have represented Belgium at the CBC with Jooki this year and are thrilled with the ACE Creative prize. The Creative Business Cup is a very stimulating and challenging competition, with a very strong and knowledgeable jury. We are energized and fully focused to launch Jooki in the summer of 2017."
