OLAF kick scooter makes it to best Kickstarter projects from Slovenia
The OLAF's design is innovative, well thought-out, clean, and practical. It is also the story about urban mobility and sustainability.
OLAF kick scooter makes it to best Kickstarter projects from Slovenia
The OLAF engineering team led by Bostjan Zagar PhD is now focusing on establishing production in Europe.
OLAF's success is not surprising. The unique foldable OLAF Urban can carry any backpack or bag and transforms to a longboard, so there is little competition to rival its travel experience.
A second, carry-on version, OLAF Business, facilitates connecting flights. Although initially made for airports, it also performs well on pavements and bike routes, thus making it useful not only for connecting flights but for passengers going to airports by road or via public transport.
THE OLAF STORY
Father and son design an "open platform kick scooter"
Kick scooter, pronounced 'geek scooter.'
Kick scooters are gaining popularity in many populous urban and suburban areas worldwide. As Europe leans toward sustainable mobility, more and more creative ideas are addressing the issue of daily commuting. Designed and engineered in a home garage in Ljubljana, Slovenia, the OLAF Kick Scooter is one such attempt to alleviate the 'last-mile' problem.
OLAF Kick Scooter: remarkable development
Engineer Bostjan Zagar and his father developed an open platform kick scooter, OLAF Urban, that can carry any bag or backpack. A unique feature is that if used with the provided OLAF backpack, the scooter itself is a backpack, and if the handle is folded, also a longboard.
Jure Lozic, designer of Musguard - rollable bike fender, calls the folding mechanism "an engineering marvel, simple and effective". Bostjan owns a patent and hopes it will take him from A to B, where B is mass production. Slovenia has ample production capabilities, so an eventual goal would be global manufacture.
After almost three years of research and development, Zagar was confident enough to start crowd funding at Kickstarter. To broaden the odds of success, he implemented the same folding mechanism to an existing concept of carry-on kick scooter, OLAF Business. Now you really can cross the Atlantic with a kick scooter. "It's the coolest carry-on!"
Slovenia: startling success
Slovenia, with a population of a mere two million, has over the last decades established an enviable reputation in Europe for technological innovation in areas as diverse as aviation, boatbuilding and race-motorcycle aftermarket parts, and enjoys a $48 billion GDP, with $23,500 per annum per capita earnings.
