Not one, but two Finnish finalists

Finland always finds itself in one the jumbo positions in the Eurovision Song Contest (with just one exception fortifying the rule, Lordi).

Comforting, then, that at least the country seems to punch above its weight in urban innovation. Latest recognition comes from the European Commission, which has not one, but two Finnish cities among the finalists for the next iCapital, European Innovation Capital. Both Helsinki and Tampere are on the shortlist of ten cities – established national capital vs. frantically growing regional capital. The other eight cities are Aarhus, Berlin, Copenhagen, Nice, Paris, Tallinn, Tel Aviv and Toulouse (tellingly, no UK cities), so it is going to be a tough battle.

The current iCapital, class of 2016, is Amsterdam. I was in the Charles Landry -led selection jury back then. The Finnish applicant was Espoo, whose hermetically inward-looking application did its best to hide the fact that Espoo is one of the three cities forming the Helsinki metropolitan region (sorry, Espoo). In general, cities were yawningly citizen-driven, best of this and that (with varying amount of proof), oh so international, and all over the place.

The shortlisted ones were able to prioritise, concretise and resource their ideas, balancing the big picture with realistic plans – after all, the iCapital award is just a million, and a year is a short time. In the last round the finalists presented their cases to the jury. Best cities managed to tell a believable and genuine story, adding colour to their written proposals and convincing the jury that they do master the content behind the buzzwords. They had also rehearsed their presentations well – an obvious thing, except it wasn’t.

Tampere and Helsinki are driving forces in the pioneering Six City Strategy, one of the last large projects I won while still in Forum Virium Helsinki. I know well the folks from both cities – rather happy to not to be in the jury this time.  Will just put my money on the Finns, either of the two. May the best city win.

 

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: I’ll start as the new CITO of the Future Cities Catapult

To follow the trend of the week and quote David Bowie, it’s time for Ch-ch-ch-changes. After a great decade in Forum Virium Helsinki, I have decided to take the next step. I have been appointed as the new CITO of the Future Cities Catapult. I will be moving to London in March, and start in my new position in the beginning of April.

There will be two new C-level people in the Future Cities Catapult. Dr Andrew Robinson joins as Chief Operating Officer (COO). He was previously Managing Director of Siemens Building Technologies and a member of the Siemens plc Executive team. Andrew has run major international business divisions through growth and change, led product innovation and complex technology projects across the built environment in construction, rail, highways, logistics and aviation in the UK, Europe, Middle East, the Americas and Asia.

Exciting times ahead.

See you there:ENoLL Summer School !!!

The travel calendar for the fall starts to fill up. It’s gonna be a fantastic autumn. The first goal is Manchester, where the user driven innovation people gather together for the 4th European Network Of Living Labs Summer School. The previous three events in Paris, Barcelona and Helsinki have been great, and we can expect the same for Manchesher. One difference between the previous editions and this one is the location, which is in the middle of the (beautiful) city.

The summer school kicks off with a research day, and continues through the whole week. It will be also the launch event for the World Bank & ENoLL collaboration – community-driven Living Labs are especially valid way to do innovation int he developing countries and cities.

More info can be found in the summer school website. See you there!!!

ISPIM Conference Comes To Town

The International Society for Professional Innovation Management – ISPIM – are starting their annual conference in Helsinki today.

I am the first one in the line of fire, as I will be doing THE most frightening speaking task: give a dinner speech. DInner speech sums up the basic fact of performing: the shorter the time, the harder the task. While performing, people build barricades of powerpoint slides or umpteen words (messing upo event schedules). None of that for a dinner speech. It should also be funny. So the task is close to stand-up-comedy, actually. Maybe I should grab a trick or two from Louis C.K.?

I will be speaking about TRUST, STEALING and FORGETTING. More specifically, about trust as the basis for being innovative – for an individual, for a company, and for a nation; about stealing (ideas) as the fundamental way we innovate; and about forgetting (what you think you know) as the core ingredient of learning.

Tomorrow there will be a Living Lab session (session 1.5, 2 pm)  where I will be speaking too. There are great people in the session, like Pieter Ballon of iMinds and Petra Turkama of Aalto CKIR who will be hosting the session. And thank god, there I can hide behing my slides. Tonight, it’s just me (and the flu).