Published:  1.11.2017

IBM, Digita and Etteplan are jointly organising Finland’s first nationwide innovation competition, the Future City Challenge, with the aim of designing new solutions and applications to make the everyday lives of city-dwellers easier. The cities participating in the competition are Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Oulu, Jyväskylä and Tampere. Future City Challenge will begin on 3 December 2017 and end on 31 January 2018.

The competition is aimed at companies, startups and students interested
in urban challenges. Instead of technology-oriented problems, each
participating city will announce a number of real-life challenges for the
application developers to solve. The best and most viable ideas will be
rewarded, and the competition offers the possibility to give new business
models a flying start. The competition will be launched at a kick-off event in
Espoo on Wednesday, 22 November.

The jury of the Future City Challenge consists of IoT services Director Ari Kuukka of Digita, Director of
Economic Development Tuula Antola of
the City of Espoo, Technology Director Jaakko
Ala-Paavola of Etteplan, Cloud Specialist Arto Ahde of IBM, CEO Rasmus
Roiha of the Finnish Software Industry and Entrepreneur Association and
Director of Economic Development Marja-Leena Rinkineva of the City of Helsinki.

”The competition fits
Espoo’s profile as an innovative city that promotes vitality and networked
activities. The needs and wishes of residents are constantly becoming more
diverse, and the city should be able to respond to them with resident-oriented
and high-quality services. From the Future City Challenge, we hope to obtain
digital solutions for our growing service needs”, says Tuula Antola, Director of Economic Development, City of Espoo.

The participants in
the competition will be given access to the cities’ open data with the help of
Etteplan’s leading IoT expert organisation. Digita will provide access to its
nationwide IoT network based on LoRaWAN technology, while IBM will contribute the
Bluemix innovation platform containing, for example, IBM Watson AI capabilities
and an IoT platform. In addition, the competition organisers will offer the
latest tools, required resources and project team support for the contestants.
               

Additional information
and registration:
http://futurecitychallenge.fi

Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/357535631335885/

Media contacts:

IBM Finland, Kim Johnsson, Business Development Manager
Partners, tel. +358 50 554 1647

Digita Oy, Ari Kuukka, Director, IoT services, tel. +358 40 149 7942

Etteplan Plc, Technology Director Jaakko Ala-Paavola, tel.
+358 44 755 2936

IBM is a technology company specialising in
cognitive data processing and cloud platforms, supporting the digital
transformations of its customers and entire industries. New innovations are at
the heart of our strategy, and we offer sector-specific solutions in the fields
of cognitive data processing, cloud services, big data, analytics, mobility,
social business and information security. IBM operates in more than 170
countries. www.ibm.fi

Digita transmits radio and
television programmes to everyone living in every corner of Finland every day
of the year. We also apply the latest digital technology in order to develop
and offer versatile online television and radio services. In addition, our
service portfolio includes IoT services based on our comprehensive network, as
well as world-class Data Centre Services. Our clients include media companies
as well as mobile and broadband operators offering first-class content. www.digita.fi

Etteplan provides industrial
equipment and plant engineering, embedded systems, IoT (Internet of Things),
and technical documentation solutions to the world’s leading companies in the
manufacturing industry. Our services are geared to improve the competitiveness
of our customers’ products and engineering processes throughout the product
life cycle. The results of Etteplan’s innovative engineering can be seen in
numerous industrial solutions and everyday products. In 2016, Etteplan had a
turnover of EUR 183.9 million. The company currently has some 2,800
professionals in Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and China.
Etteplan’s shares are listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Ltd under the ETTE ticker. www.etteplan.com