Industrial Internet: Competitiveness and jobs in Finland

On 24 March, representatives of the forefront of Finnish corporations, state authorities and some of the most promising startups gathered, on the invitation of Prime Minister Alexander Stubb, for a discussion on the potential offered by the Industrial Internet in Finland.

Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO of Konecranes, explained in the meeting that the Industrial Internet is a merger of traditional industries and the ICT industry. If an ecosystem similar to Silicon Valley could be created in Finland, it would mean a vast number of jobs.

"The Industrial Internet is going to change the whole world. Finland has excellent opportunities to be a leader in this: we already have top expertise in the Industrial Internet both among the actors of traditional industries and the ICT sector", says Prime Minister Alexander Stubb.

The discussions focused, for example, on big data, smart industry, analytics and smart city. Key questions were: how the Industrial Internet could create new jobs in Finland and what the Industrial Internet means to businesses and their growth potential.

According to Prime Minister Stubb, the idea of a meeting between decision-makers, corporations and startups emerged in November 2014 at the Northern Future Forum of nine Prime Ministers held in Helsinki

"I wanted to gather together companies and public-sector decision-makers because this project is for Finland as a whole. The meeting came up with concrete projects that can be developed further. Tekes – the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation will organise a follow-up meeting", Stubb says.

At the meeting hosted by the Prime Minister in Kesäranta, larger organisations among the participants were Konecranes, Supercell, Outotec, Wärtsilä, Posti Group, the City of Tampere, the Finnish Defence Forces and the Ministry of Finance.

Participants representing startups were from Cyberlightning Oy, Olapcon Oy, Havamax Solutions Oy, Retail Logistics Excellence - RELEX Oy, Oliotalo Oy, BaseN Oy, Enevo Oy, Aidon Oy, Remion Oy, 3D Online Factory Oy, Vincit Oy and Wolt Enterprises Oy.

Photos in the Government's Flickr photostream

Inquiries: Maarit Kaltio, Special Adviser (Economic Policy Affairs), tel. 044 582 8217