Details: Category: Business; 16 Jun 2015

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A minor storm has been buffeting Finnish social media channels for the past few months. The epicenter? An impressively researched infographic that was taken from a news story published by Tufts University alumni, showing the current state of evolution in 50 of the world’s leading digital economies. According to the article, Finland’s digital economy is officially in a stall out phase.

What is a stall out economy? Why is it negative? Finland, along with other stall outs such as Australia, Denmark and Japan, has previously showed significant growth in implementing digital infrastructure and integration, but has markedly slowed down said integration in recent times. In fact, despite Finland’s elevated ranking in terms of overall digital proficiency, there has been a slight regression in the pace of this change.

As we all know, the digital realm is constantly evolving, and the challenges faced by digital pioneers evolve in-step. Finland’s reliance on catering to its own consumer tastes and needs has been a remarkable driver of success in the past, however the saturation of western digital economies, coupled with sweeping austerity measures and cutbacks in consumer spending have lead to a small but hugely significant retraction in Finland’s digital progress.

Straight-line thinking is no longer the answer. The new Finnish Government’s manifesto has placed a huge emphasis on digital innovation being the catalyst to drive Finland’s economy for the foreseeable future. For this to happen, a new approach to innovation has to be utilised.

An EU backed initiative may be the key. The Open Innovation 2.0 initiative creates an ideal crucible within which to catalyse innovation opportunities. In short, input is gathered from a Quadruple Helix of stakeholders that includes the public, businesses, academia and government. All stakeholders work in a collaborative manner to rapidly prototype solutions to projects that have far grander scope than those undertaken by one or two stakeholders in isolation. The result? A proven framework for rapidly developing and testing solutions that is both comprehensive and genuinely useful on a societal level.

Finland hosted the third edition of Open Innovation 2.0 Conference from June 7-9 on the Aalto University in Otaniemi. The choice of venue is no mistake – Aalto resides in the Espoo Innovation Garden, a citywide initiative in which the Quadruple Helix of innovation is playing out in real time. Amongst the high calibre Luminary Award winners, Finland was the proud home of two recipients of the prestigious Innovation Luminary Awards. Two Finnish entrepreneurs were presented with an award. Risto Siilasmaa is the recipient of the Finnish Innovation Champion Award and Miki Kuusi the Young Innovation Champion. Nokia Chairman Risto Siilasmaa and founder of Slush Miki Kuusi are both tech industry titans, and both had a strong message for the future of Innovation in Finland and beyond. “Finland in general and Europe as a whole has a proud history of innovating, but a poor track record of turning Innovation into business opportunities. The current rate of 30% of all technological Innovation originating in European labs is unacceptable when compared to the fact that only 4 of the top 50 technology companies are European based” explained Nokia Chairman Risto Siilasmaa during his acceptance speech as Finnish Innovation Champion Luminary Award winner. Miki Kuusi, Young Innovation Champion Luminary Award winner expanded on this point, by stating that “Innovation is a direct result of deregulation, and the removal of the fear of failure.”

Finland, a traditionally forward thinking country with a history of innovation, must ensure that the very tradition and history it is proud of doesn’t weigh down its future progress. If necessity is the mother of invention, then the birth of a new approach to innovation may be just what Finland needs to necessitate progress in its future.

Text by: John Cozzi
Photos by: Tuula Palaste-Eerola