A week ago in Helsinki, far in the North of Europe, amidst autumn darkness, quite an interesting event took place. It was the final gala of Helsinki Challenge competition.
Well, just a final of yet another competition doesn't sound too interesting by itself. In this case, there is a good reason to look closer at the idea behind the competition. It could be enough of a bait to say that Finland is among the leaders in innovative industries: with giant Nokia almost forgotten, there came Rovio with Angry Birds, Supercell with Clash of Clans and literally thousands of start-ups, many of which are really successful.
Source: twitter.com
The reasons behind such a great performance on a global stage for a very small nation (5 M people) is often linked with the education system. No stress, less competition, more team work, yet very individualistic society. And a welfare state, where you don't feel endangered, you are free to pursue what you think is right, where you can take risky paths without worrying too much about food or house.
This all forms the background to understand how nice, and how natural for Finland Helsinki Challenge is. 10 Finnish universities teamed up to organize and support a science-based competition that aims at tackling global challenges. Be it climate change, hunger, gender equality, whatever problem humanity faces - if you can solve it, that's the competition for you.
But this is a competition that gives you a lot. Out of over 100 applications received last year, 20 were chosen for semi-final stage. It was not a fight between the teams, it was rather a kind of start-up accelerator. Participants received trainings on pitching, feasibility analysis, funding searching and many networking and mentoring opportunities. Instead of competing, it was shared learning and co-creation. The final, including 7 teams, went in the same spirit.
Brainstorming at one of the workshops. Source: twitter.com
And so we got to the final evening of the Challenge, which was a competition, but in the same time a cooperation, co-learning and co-participation for all involved. The winner was supposed to receive 375 000 euro, which is not that much, but can mean a lot to a young start-up. The jury was not industry-based, so the choice was based on very sustainable criteria, with monetary gains being secondary consideration. I find this extremely valuable in the present-time society, driven predominantly by an aim for profit. Two winning teams were iCombine, working on personalised cancer treatment, and Heat Stock, developing a novel material with stable, huge heat storing capacity.
Winning teams. Source: twitter.com
Let’s see if the rewarded teams will help to solve sustainable development goals and make the Earth a better place. Surely more competitions in this spirit can have a great effect!