Insights

Many Finnish companies miss an opportunity to get EU funding because Finland lacks a national strategy to support this.

Column in Kauppalehti by Pekka Koponen 25.11.2013

Large corporations join Slush too!

The present year's Slush happening was a demonstration in force for Finland. 5000 people attended, 1000 companies, 100 billions worth of capital investors as well as domestic and foreign celebrities ranging from the President of Estonia to Miss Finland.

Innovation Mill commercializes large corporation’s unused innovations that are not within the core of their corporate strategy. The accelerator started as cooperation between Nokia, Tekes and Technopolis and during the four years of operation it has created 74 new companies and 650 new jobs.

Spinverse is organising the third international event integrating nano, materials and production technologies. It gives an outlook to European and global developments and showcases latest innovations in these fields. Industrial Technologies 2014 follows the success of the previous Industrial Technologies conferences in Brussels in 2010 and in Aarhus in 2012.

Resource scarcity is the new trend. We have e.g. too little clean water, energy, and rare raw materials. At the same time many resource side-flows from production are being thrown away or seen as waste. The mountains of garbage at the landfills are growing as we speak. Could your waste be my gold? Can this even be seen as a new underused business opportunity? According to the CTOSurvey2014, the respondents believe so.

The VALUE4NANO project started in September 2013 and aims at developing an implementation roadmap of 4 value chains and their target products. The roadmap will include business modelling and planning for a set of pilot lines and it will involve strategic industry and European stakeholders from research and innovation. The selected areas are:

Inefficient solid waste disposal is a huge global problem that has substantial deteriorating effect on our quality of life. The nasty consequences include emissions, hazardous effect on human health, environment pollution, health problems and land depletion.

Finnish innovation consultancy Spinverse strengthens its service portfolio by acquiring Open Innovation Management Oy. By acquisition Spinverse begins operating the Innovation Mill-accelerator, which commercializes large corporations’ unused ideas and innovations. The accelerator started as cooperation between Nokia, Tekes and Technopolis and during the four years of operation it has created 70 new companies and 650 new jobs.

Column in Kauppalehti by Pekka Koponen 23.9.2013

Join the construction boom in China?

There is a feeling of unease about the coming winter among the Finnish construction industry. Real estate market outlook is murky and the start of new projects is being delayed. Exports to Russia are booming, but should one venture even further out to the East? More than a third of the global construction activity takes place in China. With the current pace China is constructing the equivalent of the entire building stock of Germany in less than two years.

Spinverse signed a collaboration agreement with Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Green Building Industry Cluster Demonstration Zone in Wujin district of Changzhou city in Jiangsu province, China on September 10th 2013 in Beijing.