Insights

The European Maritime and Fisheries Fund supported the sustainable development of the blue economy SMEs across the European Union with an overall budget of 22,5 M€ in its 2019 call for proposals. The BlueInvest Fund addressed the challenge of developing and bringing to market new products, services, and business models for early-stage businesses, SMEs and scale-ups. The next BlueInvest call 2020 with a budget of 20 M€ is planned to be published later this autumn with a deadline in mid-January 2021. Is your company ready to tackle the new opportunities enabled by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund? Find out how Spinverse can help you get ready for the upcoming funding opportunity!

In July, Spinverse Consultant Sonja Lätti defended her doctoral dissertation on the evolution of innovation and strategy processes at Aalto University School of Business, becoming the 14th holder of doctorate degree in our company. She presented her case study on the development of the people flow solutions at KONE between 2004-2015. The findings show how the efforts on both top and middle management levels are interconnected when driving change in a large organisation. We asked Sonja a few questions about her research and how she managed to combine work and scientific study.

In the midst of the pandemic, Spinverse welcomed several new colleagues onboard. Some of them started as permanent employees and some joined us for the summer. Between April and early June, we have onboarded a total of nine new colleagues at Spinverse with little or no face-to-face contact. How did it go?

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.

LuxTurrim5G ecosystem led by Spinverse and Nokia has recently gained outstanding traction by being awarded with honors in the Traficom 5G Innovation Competition. LuxTurrim5G is an intensive innovation ecosystem of 26 partners working closely together to tackle the critical challenges of urbanization through building the digital backbone for a smart city, which enables a multitude of necessary digital services.

New year – new challenges! Mikael Sundholm, Germain Courtois, Amir Moslemi and Patrick Halford all started year 2020 with new and exciting responsibilities by joining Spinverse. Let’s have a closer look.

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.

Recent years have witnessed a steady growth in business and need for new experts at Spinverse. John Sperryn, Virpi Martikainen, Anssi Savisalo, Miguel Lopes, Aleksi Nieminen, Susanna Kiijärvi and Miisa Salmela are among the new team members who joined the ever growing Spinverse family in 2019.

Digitalisation is expected to bring major benefits in health care, both as effective health care solutions and in cost savings. Finland is investing significantly in R&D of both fields to become the world leader in health tech in the upcoming years. CleverHealth Network is an innovation ecosystem where Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) and a group of prominent Finnish technology companies use health care data to develop together better health care solutions for Finns and successful export products for the companies. Spinverse facilitates the ecosystem, acting as a key driver for these new innovations in health tech.

The new year 2020 at Spinverse is off to a great start as we welcome new expertise to the management team. We are pleased to announce the hiring of Patrick Halford as of January 2020 to lead the Key Digital Technologies (KDT) business unit.

To be able to tackle major global challenges in various industry segments, Spinverse seeks to hire skilled experts from many different fields to meet the needs of the clients. Both new and current employees are empowered for personal and professional growth and continuous learning at Spinverse. Get to know some of the growth paths at Spinverse.

Many companies ask Spinverse for help to apply for EU funding to boost their development and growth. Not everyone who applies for funding receives it, but working with Spinverse can yield other benefits.

Have you worked with an exceptional CTO in Finland? We are now looking for nominations to find the CTO who makes the biggest impact in bringing the best out of their team, is an inspiring leader and adds significant value to the company through technology.

Who is eligible? Anyone who is responsible for their company’s technology in Finland. The selection criteria are very comprehensive and are specified by three categories: the person, the CTO's company and societal impact. The nomination period is open until the 31th of January 2019.

The European private VC market is still relatively small, so young Nordic companies increasingly turn to public funding to scale up.

Have you built your business and now ready to take the next step? For this next stage of growth, you need knowledge and resources. Join our free webinar on 17.12. and get the best tips on how to succeed in EU funding!

Entrepreneurs at Slush have funding on their minds. The EU’s innovation programme is changing and young companies wonder how they will be affected.

Spinverse helps to refine an innovation into business — we know where large companies are going to be in five years’ time. Laura Koponen, Managing Director and D.Sc. (tech) is proud of her incredibly brilliant employees. There are over 10 employees with doctorate degrees and people with solid experience from working at various technology companies, amounting to hundreds of years put together. Even though there is a good representation from industrial engineering and management at Spinverse, there are also a few economists and chemists: “We recently hired our first architect!”   

The 2019 CTO Survey revealed that the way Finnish companies utilise data is changing.

LuxTurrim5G ecosystem led by Nokia and Spinverse is building the digital backbone of smart city. Based on the smart 5G light poles developed recently, now the focus of the joint development of key high-tech companies and top-notch research groups is set on piloting the fast 5G network and developing new data driven services for the real needs of cities. Through a two-year, EUR 26 million, intensive co-development effort the group of 26 partners target the global smart city markets worth tens of billions of euros.

Size does matter in R&D, but by joining forces via open innovation and ecosystems, also small actors can make big things happen. Spinverse believes that even global firms are too small to innovate just in-house as digitalisation blurs the lines of different industries.