-What was it about Forum Virium Helsinki’s work that aroused Affecto’s interest?
Forum Virium Helsinki’s operating philosophy is well in line with Affecto’s new strategic direction. Both Affecto and Forum Virium Helsinki emphasize partnerships, the ecosystem thinking, and experimentation with customers and partners in joint development projects.
Several Affecto experts had noted Forum Virium’s operations with interest over a number of years. Perhaps the main theme that appealed to Affecto experts about Forum Virium was open data and its utilization. We were also impressed with Forum Virium’s hackathons and other events.
-What kind of collaborations does Affecto hope to create through its membership in Forum Virium Helsinki?
We are interested in open collaborations that combine different sectors – the kind of projects that can generate new types of services for citizens, enterprises and organizations in Helsinki and elsewhere in Finland, projects that combine technology know-how with other strengths of various different actors. We hope for more experimental and agile projects in which citizens can be engaged from the very beginning to test and to verify the functionality and real value of the service concepts being developed.
-What kind of developments do you envision, for example, within the smart city theme?
I see huge opportunities. For example, the utilization of artificial intelligence would ease various processes and decision-making, and this would speed up public services and increase customer satisfaction with the services.
-How does Affecto collaborate with the City of Helsinki?
Affecto is one of the actors involved in the Helsinki Service Map development. This is a service that contains information about city services and their locations as well as accessibility. In addition, we work with the City of Helsinki in the development of a system that collects citizen feedback from various sources and compiles it in one central database. We also maintain and develop the City of Helsinki’s internal reporting environment.
-Can you share with us some basic background information about Affecto?
Affecto helps its customers to improve their productivity and competitiveness with the help of advanced digital solutions for information management and business analytics. We help organizations to improve with superior use of information in decision-making and execution. Our turnover was 123 million euros in 2014, and we employed about 1,000 people in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
We warmly welcome Affecto as a member of Forum Virium Helsinki! Our other members are the City of Helsinki, Elisa, Finnvera, IBM, Helen, Siemens, Sitra, Sponda, Tekes, TeliaSonera, TIEKE, Tieto, VTT and the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle. Our development projects embrace a large number of partners.