Glimpses into the future > Recent

We are the change!

2020-09-01 9:43

Melissa Arni-Harden

Once the new business practices brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic have become a part of the new normal, building an employer brand will be more important than ever. Committing to fostering inclusion and diversity is an excellent way to strengthen an organization's image as an employer. Hiring people who have moved to Finland from abroad for study or family reasons portrays the image of a dynamic

Congratulations, Taoyuan and all the intelligent finalists!

2019-06-14 12:43

Päivi Sutinen

This time last year, at the Top1 dinner, we were pretty calm. We honestly didn’t expect to win, so there was nothing to be nervous about. It was a real surprise when we were called to the stage as Top one Intelligent Community 2018.

Hack with Espoo – upper secondary school students hack the city’s systems

2018-09-28 10:45

Matti Parviainen

On 1 October 2018, Espoo’s upper secondary schools are launching a completely new kind of course even on a national scale called Hack with Espoo. The course will teach upper secondary school students about new information security trends, hacking, its ethics and tools. Towards the end of the course, they will have the opportunity to test the information security of the city’s information system.

AI experiment, phase 2: Tests completed, artificial intelligence works

2018-01-30 8:46

Tomas Lehtinen

A challenge that many cities face is that the various sectors and services have internal service paths as the data or knowledge may be kept in silos. In our artificial intelligence experiment, which combines data from early childhood education and social and healthcare services, one of the challenges has been to combine data from two sectors and multiple systems.

F1 and C21 = A successful Finland is a network of successful city regions

2017-11-02 10:23

Mayor Jukka Mäkelä

A gathering of Finland’s largest cities, the C21 meeting, received extensive coverage in the media. Mayors from Finland’s 21 largest cities were invited to the event, with the mayors from the six largest cities led by Helsinki Mayor Jan Vapaavuori acting as conveners.

New West Metro line – like building an ocean liner inside a glass bottle

2017-11-02 10:03

Ville Saksi

The scope of the West Metro project is almost unprecedented in Finland. The end product will be vastly different from the metro service that was first created 40 years ago. The initial project plan, completed in 2008, failed to look forward towards the future and assess the sort of technologies that were likely to be available now, notably in the areas of fire safety but also in terms of wider bui

Better service through technology

2017-03-23 14:18

Päivi Sutinen

Automation, robotics and artificial intelligence are the future, also in municipal services. Naturally, it is not possible or even desirable to replace people with machines in everything, but it makes sense to occupy people with services that cannot be handled by machines. This way, human thinking resources can be targeted at genuinely productive and important work.

Growth for all companies - not just startups

2016-10-12 11:14

Harri Paananen

A vision of growth requires the right attitude, and any company can be a growth company. Examples include the guys at lääkärihinta.fi that were part of Summer of Startups, as well as the brave migrant restauranteur who has just expanded my favourite lunch restaurant Zava. It's all about choosing between the willingness to create new things and simply trying to survive and defend the current positi

The metro as an opportunity – Espoo driving towards sustainability

2016-10-12 10:44

Olli Isotalo

In Espoo, the metro is a significant driving force in our efforts to create a dynamic and competitive region for the growth and development corridor that is economically, environmentally and socially sustainable.

Chinese talent in Finland – can you afford not to engage?

2016-09-29 14:53

Teemu Haapalehto

For Peter Vesterbacka, well-versed in the immense opportunities offered by the Chinese export market, Chinese language proficiency represents an important building block for Finland’s future economic prosperity. As he has it, a workforce proficient in the language would attract Chinese and other international companies to base themselves in Finland, and also smooth the way for Finnish companies ke