Former Vice President of Intel Labs Europe and co-founder of the Innovation Value Institute, Martin Curley, who was speaking at the CTO Forum Finland in Helsinki on October the 13th, 2016, started off his address to the Finnish CTOs by saying that we live in a new era where the pace of innovation is a matter of survival.
Ian Roberts, CTO of Bühler and Michael Thiel, Chief Science Officer and Co-founder of Nanoscribe have been awarded with the title European Chief Technology Officer of the Year 2016 in their respective categories: large corporations and SMEs. The awards ceremony took place during the CTO Forum 2016 in Evonik Creavis GmbH, Marl, Germany on October 27th, 2016. Both awardees serve as prominent role models fuelling growth and strengthening European innovation and technology leadership.
The term “Open Innovation” was originally coined in 2003, and refers to the paradigm where ideas pass between different organisations to create value. Since the 2010s innovation efforts have moved towards Open Innovation 2.0, where shared added value is created together with different actors in an ecosystem. According to Spinverse's latest CTO Survey, Finnish companies have acknowledged Open Innovation 2.0 and there is a willingness for its implementation. In practice the innovation efforts are still closer to the original principles of open innovation, rather than OI 2.0.
Spinverse Group has invested in 3DBear, a startup focusing on making 3D printing easy with their game, 3DBear, that runs on a tablet. A total of 120 000 euros was raised from London-based angel investor Glyn Eggar, along with Spinverse Group, as well as the former Director-General of Tekes Veli-Pekka Saarnivaara.
Spinverse is delighted to make known yet another customer success story: Finnish company IndoorAtlas secured Horizon2020 SME Instrument financing to scale-up and expand the disruptive geomagnetic indoor positioning technology delivered as a scalable cloud platform.
The European innovation and business environment is facing severe structural changes, requiring key players to continuously update strategies to maintain and foster competitiveness. Hence, a new breed of innovation is emerging. It exploits disruptive technologies to solve societal challenges sustainably and profitably by blurring the borders between research, industry and governments. It is called Open Innovation 2.0.
Carl Haglund, the Vice President of Kaidi’s European strategy, has been appointed CEO of Kaidi Finland. Up to date, the acting CEO of Kaidi Finland has been Pekka Koponen, CEO and Founder of Spinverse. Koponen undertook the role of CEO of Kaidi Finland initially as part of Spinverse's task of building one-stop-shop Finnish operations for Kaidi Finland. Koponen continues his role as chief adviser in the Kemi biofuel refinery project as part of the cooperation between Kaidi Finland and Spinverse.
Shipping companies are actively looking for solutions to reduce fuel consumption and environmental emissions of vessels, particularly due to the recent fuel price instability as well as the forthcoming environmental regulations. Spinverse customer Norsepower is ready to address this challenge utilising new technology, advanced materials and leading-edge control system.
Starting in October 2016, Small and medium-sized enterprises in Finland will be able to benefit from the Innovation Voucher scheme. Introduced as a pilot venture by Tekes financial services, the Innovation Voucher is worth 5 000 € and is meant for micro-enterprises and SME’s. A company that receives the voucher can purchase professional innovation services from a service provider, that has a special know-how or expertise that the voucher recipient does not have. The Innovation Voucher is a part of the Enterprise Package that the Finnish government announced in April 2016. The package aims to promote entrepreneurship by providing SMEs with access to tools they may require to realise their innovation potential.
5 small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) from Finland have been selected in the latest round of Horizon2020 SME Instrument Phase 2. Each project receives up to € 2.5 million to finance innovation activities. Three out of five Finland’s winning cases in this cut-off secured funding with the help of Spinverse.