Helsinki Program Report
| Theme / Urban Challenge | Reduction of Environmental Impact by Controlling Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Buildings |
|---|---|
| Duration | Aug 26th - Aug 30th 2024 |
Program Introduction
General Meetings
- Visits to companies and academic institutions around Helsinki such as the University of Helsinki
- Visits to startup facilities around Helsinki
- Pre-pitches sessions with staff members from the relevant departments of the City of Helsinki
General Meeting: Pre-pitches sessions with City of Helsinki
General Meeting: Introduction of startup activities in Helsinki
Individual Meetings
- Individual meetings were held with potential experiment partners, including private companies, and Helsinki's startup hub, according to individuals’ needs. (3 meetings on average for each startup)
The Final Pitches
The Final Pitches
Feedbacks from Participating Startups
Opinions about the project and global business expansion in general were collected through participant interviews.
Difficulties Participants face during global business expansion
Selection of Potential Global Business Expansion Destination
Inconvenience of collecting liable business expansion information are significant due to the lack of human and financial capital.
The barriers due to the lack of recognition and experience faced when building networks with local government agencies and private are hard to overcome even after local market research.
Product Feasibility Verification
Great difficulties were faced when verifying the feasibility of our products with only limited information available.
Great difficulties were faced when verifying the feasibility of our products with only limited information available.
The needs of potential business partners at business forums vary, making it difficult to implement the PDCA cycle for our products.
Feedbacks from participants
- We gathered information efficiently through the enriched arrangement
- Numerous meetings were arranged with private companies and various government departments according to our proposal, allowing for highly efficient information gathering towards the pitches and overall global business expansion throughout the week.
- The strong commitment from the City of Helsinki significantly enhanced our understanding of the urban challenge
- Our understanding towards Helsinki’s urban challenge was strongly enhanced thanks to the strong commitment from the City of Helsinki, who provided flexible support such as introducing relevant private companies for future collaboration.
- Our products’ advantage and areas for improvement for global business expansion are clarified
- The advantages and weakness of our products was made clear during the feedbacks from government agencies, private companies, and universities. These various sectors made crucial comments on specific proposals and allowed us to quickly implement the PDCA cycle.
- Relation building with local companies and participating startups is achieved during the program
- We have been keeping in touch with local private companies that we met during the stay, local ones as well as other participants in this program, aiming for future business collaboration even after returning to Japan.