Helsinki, world leader in the use of Open Data, wants to offer citizens “one hour more every day”

ZABALA has promoted through the accelerators IRSUS; European Data Incubator and Data Market Services, the participation of the most innovative startups in the European Big Data Value Forum (EBDVF), the main event of the European Research and Innovation community focused on Big Data and Data-Based AI.

In 2017 the Big Data Value Association (BDVA) and the European Commission (DG CNECT) joined forces to create this event fusion of the former EDF (European Data Forum) and the BDVA Summit. The role of data in Artificial Intelligence and how the Digital Innovation Data Hubs will be developed in Europe were key issues in the meeting.

During the meeting, held recently in Helsiki, coinciding with the Finnish presidency of the Commission,the startups have had the possibility of seeking new opportunities for collaboration and financing, thanks to the activities promoted with EIT Digital and your project accelerator. The participating startups included the following:

• Hop-Ubiquitous. Its main purpose is to help cities to become Smart Cities by improving air quality, and contribute to overcoming global challenges such as climate change. They have been hired by numerous European cities and have developed projects such as Madrid Central .
• Vesputi.Its business model is focused on the development of integrated mobility maps, to favor sustainable transport and improve the quality of life of citizens.
• Contiamo. They help customers to simplify access to data and accelerate projects with virtual tools.
• U-Hopper. Smart data lab to support different companies transforming their data in value.
• uTrigg. Company that analyzes users behavior patterns to help B2B in its decision making.

The startups offered a pitch on their projects to representatives of large corporations such as Nokia and IBM at the EIT Digital Lab (Aalto University). Pointing out the interest in data sources for mobility operability and the different business models, experts had the ocassion to meet first-hand potential collaborators for the data ecosystem.

Helsinki, world leader in the use of Open Data for Smart Cities

Nowadays, the main city of Finland is a paradigm of Smart City and citizenship integration as testified by Forum Virium Helsinki – an international reference point for innovation experts. The startups present at the forum gathered ideas about how to contribute to building cities with high quality of life standars and a healthy environment.  The “one hour more every day” campaign launched by the mayor of Helsinki reinforces the cities ambition to make smart cities work for their citizens by saving them time on communiting for example. The mayor also stressed that “the most functional cities in the world invest in electronic services, digitalization, artificial intelligence and robotics.”

Finally, the startups were also protagonists of some of the EBDVF sessions. Specifically, they participated in a panel where they could share their vision in the relationship with large companies, and how they are currently facing the challenges they propose. Among the most prominent reflections, startups emphasized the streamlining and flexibility of collaboration processes with large corporations.