Finnish emerging Smart & Clean City Solutions

The Finland 100Emerging Solutions for Smart & Clean Cities’ event taking place on 18 September 2017 in Singapore will highlight a very vibrant Finnish smart mobility scene, with its many new service and solution providers focused on autonomous vehicles, car sharing, integrated mobility and smart transport.

Finish business experts will share product development opportunities, unique transport platforms, tertiary and research collaboration possibilities as well as opportunities for partnerships to help Singapore companies tap into Helsinki’s smart mobility ecosystem ( as the Finnish capital city is well on its way to becoming a smart city).

The seminar will highlight Smarter mobility – Better life: (Autonomous vehicles, Mobility as a service, e-mobility, Sharing economy) and Better built environment – Better life: (Smart Housing, Smart energy, Smart solutions for building /home automation management, energy efficient buildings, indoor air quality, architecture& design, Smart waste, Smart Environment, waste management, resource efficiency, recycling, reducing food waste).

It is not enough to design a good building. For better life a holistic view is needed to ensure sustainability and good life. Therefore new tools and approaches are needed. And new technologies enable completely new ways of considering mobility, be it traffic or transport. This will, in turn, enable the reduction of private cars, traffic congestion or, in the end, the need to move around.

The ‘Smart & Clean’ project and the use of open data in developing the city are the two most important initiatives supporting Helsinki’s smart city ambitions. The new solutions come to fruition across city or sector limits, and the actors behind them are decision makers, entrepreneurs, researchers, citizens – all of us.

The next four new projects will consist of 1) storm water management with the focus on the quality of storm water and reduction of nutrients and other particles to waters 2) indoor air quality improvements 3) mobility solutions such as MaaS and autonomous vehicles 4) New smart energy district in Otaniemi campus area.

Within smart mobility solutions the two main players in the new business are Tuup and MaasGlobal, who will both be at the event. They offer MaaS (short for Mobility as a Service, brings all means of travel together. It combines options from different transport providers into a single mobile service, removing the hassle of planning and one-off payments) services from ride shares to door to door ticketing and monthly subscription based mobility solutions, informed City of Helsinki.

The world’s first ever MaaS solution, Whim, was launched in Helsinki Region at the end of 2016, and more areas will follow in 2017. Itw allows users to book and pay for all mobility services in one app and for a monthly fee.

Another interesting new topic is the parking places’ AirBnB. The company Witrafi (www.witrafi.fi) has a solution, through which anyone can rent out their own paring space to others with very specific criteria, such as only during evenings or during office hours.

Helsinki is also a forerunner in open data and its Helsinki Region Infoshare (www.hri.fi/en/).Cities continuously collect and produce large quantities of data which are utilised in the planning, production and decision-making processes. It is also utilised in the evaluation of municipal activities. Traditionally, this data has only been in the city’s internal use but since 2011 metropolitan cities have been opening this data.

About Joakim Persson

Freelance business and lifestyle photojournalist

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