Invitation to Helsinki

Future Forward – Scott Goodstein

Since his travels to Helsinki, Scott Goodstein has been on the move about the globe, with stops, for example, in Australia and Brazil. Working on his business focused on social networking, text messaging, and lifestyle marketing for non-profits and political campaigns, he is constantly attending and lecturing at industry conferences after his two-year stint with the Obama presidential campaign. He notes the majority of these events attended lack the incredible level of organization he experienced on his Helsinki trip. “Every single meeting was very thought out and impressive,” recalls Goodstein. “I actually personally gained out of just about every meeting, far exceeding my expectations.” (more…)

Future Forward – Peter Corbett

To his surprise, Peter Corbett discovered in Helsinki a very Finnish-focused technology innovation community. Meeting with more than 50 technology community members, from people running start -ups, to people at Forum Virium, he encountered intelligent and creative engineers, but missing was the global vision for technology innovation he expected that so defines the U.S. startup community. “The Finnish startups I met all said they wanted everyone in Finland to use their service. I got to thinking, that’s kind of odd; there are five million people in Finland. When someone builds a technology company in the U.S., they say I want the entire world to use my service. I thought the homogeneity of the population in Finland was both a good thing and a bad thing for the country. I could see them benefiting from a broader perspective to help them break out of that mentality and bubble of thinking of Finland only.” (more…)

Innovations

During the past ninety years, Finland, a former periphery of Russia, has reinvented itself as one of the most successful countries in the world in almost any aspect. The story of Finland is a story of innovation.

Over the decades the industry focus has shifted from paper to high-tech, and nowadays to services. Forum Virium Helsinki brings companies and the public sector together to innovate in developing new digital services.

Our aim is to make the Helsinki region the leading test environment of digital services. User-driven innovation and real-life test environments – Living Labs – are the key tools in reaching this target. In Living Labs, new services, business models and technologies are being developed together with companies, the public sector, research institutions and local residents.

The main focus areas of Forum Virium innovation community deal with the wicked problems of the society: for example wellbeing, traffic, environment and education.

In 2006, Forum Virium Helsinki signed an MOU of collaboration with the B-Star research centre of broadband technologies in Shanghai. At Shanghai World Expo 2010, we present our interactive digital guestbook. Guest book is a community tool, which enables you to leave other guests photo & video messages.

China is the most dynamic regions in global economy for the coming decades. As a natural gateway between Europe and China, Helsinki has a special interest in building good relations to mutual exchange of ideas and expertise between Helsinki and Shanghai. Hope to see you in the Finnish pavilion!

Jarmo Eskelinen
CEO
Forum Virium Helsinki
www.forumvirium.fi