As a part of the project Forum Virium Helsinki organized a collaboration event in January and connected people in testing and piloting with companies.
Collaborative development and testing is an increasingly popular method, when companies are developing existing or new innovating products. Today also municipalities are more willing to offer companies opportunities to test. This way municipalities get possibility to evaluate new potential ideas without commitments.
Dare to try! workshop shared testing experiences and best practices, which presented different examples around Finland. There were presentations for example about Agile Piloting concept from Helsinki, Oulu Health model. Prizztech, a business development company for Pori their testing services for companies in the county of Satakunta. In the last presentation Lapinjärvi municipality presented their “Human-oriented municipality” strategy that covers all their departments.
There was also a facilitated part to discuss needs and options to organize a network dedicated to test and pilot welfare technology and services for elderly people. There is an interest to share ideas and experiences in the future too. Also benchmarking with Nordic Countries interested in participants.
The event was organized in co-operation three projects Forum Virium Helsinki on behalf of the Nordic Business Alliance and Living Lab project, The Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, and Laurea University of Applied Sciences.