Insights

In spring 2021, a national company-led hydrogen cluster was established in Finland to accelerate hydrogen economy and exports of hydrogen-related solutions. To date, the cluster has attracted almost 50 companies already, including Spinverse, which will provide services for building project consortia, raising funding and coordinating projects. The cluster aims to open up doors to European networks as there are plans to invest tens of billions of euros to hydrogen economy. The cluster has now published its website.

Patria Land is leading a defence industry consortium that has now been selected as part of the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP), an industrial programme of the EU. As part of the EDIDP, the program focuses on Ground Combat Capabilities (GCC) to develop the next generation armoured platforms and upgrade the current ones. Patria Land acts as the industrial coordinator of the EDIDP-GCC-2020 and has formed a consortium called FAMOUS (European Future Highly Mobile Augmented Armoured Systems) to execute the program. The consortium includes 19 leading European defence companies from different countries. Spinverse supported the planning and preparation of the winning FAMOUS project proposal and will help Patria Land to coordinate the project.

EDIDP is a defence industry development program designed to support the competitiveness and innovation capacity of the Union's defence industry. The EDIDP is the first EU-funded program to develop defence capabilities, with a financial envelope of 500 million euros. The selection for the EDIDP program was made in June 2021 and the actual start of the project will take place in autumn 2021. The GCC project led by Patria will last 24 months.

A new project with 30 participants from eight European countries will pave the way for an emerging new European business and technology ecosystem aimed at tackling various energy-related challenges for the future of mobility. The project accelerates Europe's decarbonization goals for 2050. The project consortium and proposal were built with the help of Spinverse.

Urbaser, a global environmental management company, and their subsidiary Socamex, will lead a pan-European CIRCULAR BIOCARBON project, launched in summer 2021. The project aims to build the first biorefinery for municipal solid waste and sewage sludge in Europe. Spinverse supported Urbaser at the project proposal phase. As a result of a successful grant application, the circular biocarbon project will be partially funded by 15 M€ from Bio-based Industries (BBI) Joint Undertaking subsidy provided by the European Commission.

The collaboration within the LuxTurrim5G ecosystem, driven by Nokia and coordinated by Spinverse, has progressed nicely despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The extensive company consortium developing a digital platform for the smart city has now reached an important milestone when its key element, the 5G smart pole, has progressed from the development stage into the pre-commercial product. It is in fact a product family of smart poles, which can meet the various needs of cities. The modular structure allows for poles in different sizes, integration of various devices, and implementation of required digital services based on usage and surrounding area. The ecosystem partners are currently working on finalising the collaboration model to bring the product to markets.   

Spinverse health tech and funding experts have been supporting Helsinki University Hospital (HUS), the largest academic medical centre in Europe, in some of their publicly funded research projects and activities related to EU funding applications. We discussed with Suzan Ikävalko, Senior Research and Innovation Manager at HUS, on the importance of EU funding as means to boost innovative research projects and collaboration with other parties.

Phenolic resins are one of the most versatile polymers yet invented. Spinverse recently supported the VIOBOND consortium to secure funding of 16 M€ from the Bio-based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) grant. VIOBOND project with a total budget of 35 M€ is led by Latvijas Finieris, and it aims to help build a sustainable and safe flagship plant for large-scale production of lignin phenol-formaldehyde (LPF). In this project, lignin will be used to partially substitute hazardous chemicals of fossil origin.

Mirka is seeking new innovative solutions for dust control and measurement in different working environments. The freshly launched Mirka Innovation Challenge, arranged in collaboration with Spinverse,  invites new ideas and ready solutions for dust level measurement, to join Mirka’s decades of experience in dust-free sanding. 

Fortum and Metsä Group launched ExpandFibre, a 4-year R&D collaboration, in summer 2020. It is a major effort towards developing high-volume bioproducts that have a significantly lower carbon footprint compared to currently available fossil-based products. To succeed in the ambitious mission, the founding companies have joined forces with a large and continuously growing group of innovation partners – the ExpandFibre Ecosystem. Spinverse has supported the ecosystem in setting up the ExpandFibre activities and is working with Fortum and Metsä Group to accelerate impactful collaboration.

Sometimes companies who have first succeeded in securing public funding for their own R&D&I project may find themselves being further funded as a part of a large European consortium tackling global challenges. This is where Spinverse’s customer SSH Communications Security succeeded. We talked to Jussi Mononen of this Finnish cybersecurity company on the differences and benefits of applying funding as an individual company to being part of a large consortium. 

The newly launched National Battery Strategy strengthens Finland’s role as a competitive, competent and sustainable player in the international battery industry. Spinverse collaborated with Gaia Consulting to provide their collective expertise on the battery strategy work for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.

Spinverse is one of the nine partners in the STARDUST project, launched in 2017, to create a miniaturised neurosurgical implant leading to a proof-of-concept for a new treatment approach for Parkinson’s disease. The four-year project has now progressed to its final year, coming a few steps closer to introduce novel ways to treat a wide variety of diseases.

The European Commission recently funded AICCELERATE, a multiparty project aiming to develop AI solutions to improve patient care and hospital processes. The goal of the “AI ACCELERATOR – a Smart Hospital Care Pathway Engine” project is to demonstrate the scalability of the AI solutions for different types of healthcare use cases. The project consortium led by Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) consists of 16 partners from eight European countries.

Spinverse recently helped the Norwegian start-up sensiBel in securing the 2.5 M€ grant and 4.2 M€ equity from the EIC Accelerator instrument. The funding will assist sensiBel in their goal to finalise their product development and scale up the manufacturing of their unique optical Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (MEMS) microphone. With the accelerated manufacturing, sensiBel will be able to satisfy the needs for better high-performance microphone technology in voice-controlled user interfaces, high-fidelity audio recordings and sound capture markets.

The CleverHealth Network ecosystem is buzzing with activity as the ongoing six co-development projects aim to develop new treatments and solutions to address clearly defined clinical challenges. The product and service innovations under development will use extensive and high-quality health care data of the Helsinki University Hospital (HUS). The projects are characterized by close-knit, multidisciplinary cooperation between HUS clinicians, research institutes and leading health technology and ICT companies.

The CHARM ECSEL JU project coordinated by Valmet aims to develop industrial IoT solutions with an improved tolerance towards harsh industrial surroundings. Digitalisation of the European manufacturing industries is the key to their continuous renewal and competitiveness. Harsh environmental conditions in manufacturing processes and end user environment may slow down the opportunities brought by IoT (Internet of Things) and AI (Artificial Intelligence). The CHARM project is set to solve this challenge.

Business Finland launched a competition in early 2020 for leading companies (so called Veturi companies) with international operations to challenge them to solve significant future problems and increase their research, development and innovation investments in Finland. Four leading companies with three projects were announced as the winners of the competition. Nokia, one of the four winning companies will launch a project called “Unlocking Industrial 5G” which allows the company to innovate new products, services and solutions in Finland and develop and commercialise them together with the companies in the local ecosystem.

Spinverse customers Fortum and Metsä Group join forces with Business Finland to create a world-class R&D programme with pulp fibre from renewable and sustainable sources as its node. The 4-year joint R&D programme, called ExpandFibre, aims to develop ground-breaking technologies and smart business concepts that are required to convert straw and wood pulp fibre into novel bioproducts, such as textile fibres. The R&D programme has been granted EUR 20 million from Business Finland. 

Nokia and its partners are targeting the global smart city markets, worth tens of billions of euros.  The LuxTurrim5G ecosystem coordinated by Spinverse has just completed a one-of-a-kind piloting environment that boosts the development of new data-driven services for cities both in Finland and abroad. It covers the route from Nokia HQ Campus in Espoo, Finland, to the nearby Kera railway station. Comprising of 19 smart poles with the latest 5G technology and altogether 250 interconnected devices, it brings super-fast connectivity and extensive sensor network available for practical piloting of digital smart city services. 

The LuxTurrim5G project has been progressing systematically from multi-disciplinary research to practice.  The 5G smart pole concept does not only boast a 5G base station integrated into a light pole but also weather and air quality sensors, video cameras, displays, an electric vehicle charging point and other devices. The concept has now reached its piloting phase for practical applications. The extensive pilot network of 19 smart poles has just been completed in Espoo, covering areas at Nokia’s Espoo Campus and extending to the nearby Kera railway station. The smart poles, using the so called millimetre wave 5G technology, bring high-speed 5G connectivity and an extensive network of sensors within the reach of the users.

”This is a globally unique smart city pilot where a high-speed and low latency 5G network, an extensive sensor network and a data platform bring novel services to the city, its people and community,” says Pekka Wainio, Project Manager, Nokia Bell Labs. 

”Local data collected by the various devices, cameras and sensors within the network can be used to produce a multitude of local services through the open interfaces of the data platform. We have received wide interest on how the surveillance cameras and radar devices can be utilised in overall security surveillance, traffic and road quality monitoring, for remote control of self-driving vehicles and in other transport and logistics services,” Wainio continues.

Joni Turunen, Project Director at Spinverse says: ”This is a unique opportunity for partners of the consortium to get access to a test platform where they can pilot new services utilizing high-capacity and fast 5G connectivity. Our pilot network includes three 26 GHz base stations by Nokia, 50 WiFi (60 GHz) devices, 75 video cameras, 49 different sensors monitoring air quality, weather, temperature and CO₂ levels by Vaisala and others, nine radar devices (six traffic radars and three lidars), seven information screens, and a drone charging and landing station at the top of the pole (by Rumble Tools). What is more, all the devices are connected to a single data platform.”

From light pole to smart pole

The LuxTurrim5G smart pole is not a light pole, but completely new element forming an essential part of the key infrastructure of a smart city. The recently implemented smart pole version already serves as a pre-commercial pilot product which helps to design the actual smart pole product family. Tehomet Oy and Orbis Oy have been mainly responsible for the design and manufacturing of the pilot poles.

”This is the first large-scale smart pole pilot in Finland, and a globally significant project. The shift from traditional light poles to smart poles is a natural, but also a challenging task where every partners’ role matters. Currently we are already working with the next generation of smart poles and focusing on designing and productising a complete product family. Smart poles hold huge potential for global markets,” says Sami Huuskonen, Design Manager at Tehomet Oy.

Digital services for sustainability and smoother living

Espoo is going to transform the Kera area to a smart and urban district with at least 14,000 residents and 10,000 jobs in near future. Kera will become a showcase of sustainable urban development and an international reference case, where the city works together with its partners to create novel, clean and smart solutions to enhance the smoother living of its people. The future Kera will be a significant piloting ground for new solutions, paving the way to larger international projects. The role of Espoo as a pioneer of sustainable development appointed by the United Nations also promotes this approach. The LuxTurrim5G ecosystem and the new pilot environment is in key role in this development.

“Completing the Kera route pilot infra is an important milestone for the LuxTurrim5G ecosystem and a prime example of our intensive co-creation that brings results, even in these exceptional times. Now we are excited to move to practical piloting of different service concepts in the actual live environment, and welcome also new partners to exploit this unique testbed with us”, says Markku Heino, Ecosystem Leader from Spinverse.

The smart pole network will form the digital backbone of a smart city by providing high-speed connectivity and a versatile sensor network to collect a wide variety of relevant on-line data e.g. on environment, weather, traffic flows, public safety, usage of energy to be used by the city and companies for specific needs and to create holistic situational awareness. Cities have also big amounts of own data which often is not widely utilized.

The project has already been developing a data platform that is capable of processing large masses of data from various sources in a reliable and efficient manner. All this is important for building new data-driven services for the city needs. This lays the foundations to the development of the Kera area and helps us to validate our solutions for scale-up in international projects. Through this Espoo pilot, the LuxTurrim5G consortium shares an ambitious target to expand to global smart city markets, worth tens of billions of euros.

Spinverse coordinates the LuxTurrim5G ecosystem efforts with a team of three seasoned experts. Dr. Markku Heino as the Ecosystem Leader, and the two projects have dedicated Project Managers: Dr. Pekka Torvinen for the Neutral Host Pilot project and Project Director Joni Turunen for the LuxTurrim5G+.  

www.luxturrim.com

On this video, you can hear more what Markku Heino, Juha Salmelin and Tommi Uitto from Nokia, Jukka Mäkelä from City of Espoo say about the LuxTurrim5G ecosystem:

Contacts:

Markku Heino, Ecosystem Leader, Spinverse
Joni Turunen, Project Director, Spinverse
Pekka Torvinen, Project Manager, Spiverse
Juha Salmelin, Nokia, juha.salmelin@nokia.com, tel. 050 522 3508

Partners of the LuxTurrim5G ecosystem:

Nokia Bell Labs, Nokia, Premix, Teleste, Vaisala, Indagon, Rumble Tools, Orbis, Tehomet, Destia, Sitowise, Caruna, A-Insinöörit, Link Design & Development, Vedia, Agora Networks, Sensible 4, City of Espoo,  Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom), VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd., Aalto University, University of Helsinki, Tampere University and Spinverse (coordinator of the ecosystem).

The project is funded by the participating companies and Business Finland.

Business Finland and companies involved in its digitalisation programs have joined forces to fund research and development activities with one billion euros in the upcoming five years. Spinverse is commissioned to help in getting the most out of the billion in this big digital transformation for Finland.