The City of Helsinki will bring together health and education pioneers from Finland and Japan at the Designing Better Life – Helsinki Meets Japan hybrid event on 7 December.
In order to promote high-quality healthcare and education on a global scale, Helsinki organises the Designing Better Life – Helsinki Meets Japan event with the aim of creating a platform for the exchange of information and strengthening cooperation between operators in Helsinki and Japan. At the same time, the event can open up new business opportunities for Japanese companies in Finland and Helsinki-based companies in Japan.
Aimed at companies, investors and professionals operating in the field, the event is organised both on-site in Tokyo and as an open virtual event. In Tokyo, the venue is the Metsä Pavilion, a representative Finnish wood architecture and design located on the grounds of the Embassy of Finland.
Boosting business by the challenges of a good life
In addition to their high technology expertise and state-of-the-art research and innovation activities, Finland and Japan share similar values.
High-quality healthcare and education are seen in both countries as cornerstones of a good life. Technical innovations and international investments play an important role in building well-being. Both Finland and Japan have top expertise in education and health technology. Many of the challenges are also the same, with regard to the ageing population, for instance.
Solutions to achieve a good life and solve problems always require careful design. Helsinki has well-functioning and close-knit ecosystems in the health and education sectors: communities of public and private operators that design new solutions and share information with each other.
“The ecosystems and the numerous experimental platforms built around them also offer opportunities for international companies and other operators to develop, test and scale services and solutions in Helsinki. We hope that the forthcoming event will enable us to increase the already fruitful cooperation with the Japanese and welcome new operators to join the cooperation with the city and our extensive partner network,” says Marja-Leena Rinkineva, Director of Economic Development at the City of Helsinki.
A hybrid event organised together with partners
The Designing Better Life – Helsinki Meets Japan event consists of two seminars on innovations in the health and education sector.
The seminars will be opened by the Mayor of Helsinki, Juhana Vartiainen, after which the programme will include speeches by the event’s partners in Finland and Japan. The diverse programme includes presentations on Helsinki’s vibrant health and education ecosystems, the latest innovations and trends as well as inspiring stories from pioneering companies. The full programme for the seminar can be found here.
The event is part of the Helsinki Designing Better Life series of events organised in 2021, whose leading theme has been building a good life through design – be it functional architecture or the design of new technology.
In September, Helsinki showcased sustainable and smart solutions for learning and urban development in Beijing at the largest design festival in Asia, Beijing Design Week. In Japan, the theme was last highlighted at the Helsinki x Fukuoka Designing Better Life event in June. Organised in cooperation with Fukuoka Directive Council, the Smart City and Smart Energy webinars were a success and opened important relationships between the cities Helsinki and Fukuoka and between Japanese and Finnish companies. The Tokyo event is also expected to generate fruitful cooperation.
The City of Helsinki organises the event in close cooperation with Helsinki Partners, a new city marketing and investment company owned by the city, and with its partners Business Finland, the Embassy of Finland in Japan, the Finnish Institute in Japan and Fukuoka Directive Council.
The programme and registration link for the event can be found on the City of Helsinki website: Designing Better Life – Helsinki Meets Japan – Design Helsinki
A recording of the event will be made available after the event on the Helsinki Channel.
Photo: Mika Huisman, JKMM