Topic

Technology

Commentary

Can smart services accelerate the renewal of Oslo city center?

Last years have marked the emergence of new smart urban services such as car sharing, smart homes, pop-up diners, electric bicycles and many forms of collaborative consumption. Meanwhile, many – even central – neighbourhoods in European towns and cities are facing severe decline. Lack of investments, eroding infrastructure and e-commerce…

Get Naked with Nearables

Last summer, I started talking with an American professor while waiting for a non-existent ferry in Istanbul. I soon found out that he happened to be one of the few early developers of the original iPhone and had only recently left the company. We joked about Nokia, and later during…

Stockholm is the second stop in the Smart Retro programme

After the successful first Peloton Smart Retro Innovation Camp in Lahti, Finland, our programme now moves into its second phase in Stockholm: the testing period. Why Stockholm? In 2005, the City of Stockholm launched the slogan “Stockholm, the Capital of Scandinavia”, pointing at the City’s ambition of establishing Stockholm as a commercial node, especially…

20 Smartups to Watch

The emergence of services and technologies in the intersection of physical and digital changes both. Rather than everything being digital or physical, everything becomes something else. This something else is currently being defined by “smartups”. Demos Helsinki along with a global panel of carefully selected panel of experts in startup acceleration,…

Smartups as the next Nordic Miracle

Did you know that a room booked via Airbnb produces 66% fewer carbon emissions per night than a hotel room? And that 80% of company leaders see immediate business opportunities arising from the depletion of natural resources? These two facts are intimately intertwined. The team at Demos Helsinki have published a major new report on the future of…

Smartups: the new wave of cleantech

Smartups: New wave of cleantech from Demos Helsinki on Vimeo. There is something really intriguing going on in the world of startups: The biggest and the most interesting new companies in the world are very particular. Airbnb, Tesla and Uber, BlaBla car, Sidecar, Scoot Networks, Nest, Swap.com, Piggybaggy, Foodtrade and…

Publications

Policy Brief: Towards a regenerative digital economy

The policy brief provides a roadmap for the EU to reform its economic policies and leverage digitalisation for a regenerative digital economy, ensuring the just allocation of digital goods and the equitable distribution of their benefits.

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On the one hand, we are more connected than ever. On the other hand, what many see as efficient services and the blossoming of creativity in their lives, is shadowed by news of data misuse, abuse of power, precarious work and extractive mining of natural resources. Do we accept these terms and conditions? If we don’t, we need to change the settings: we do this through interventions.

Recommendations for DLT-powered public services

Where and how could – and should – blockchain be used in public services? How can these uses be commissioned, developed and deployed in a fair and transparent manner? What needs special attention when using DLT in public services? In this publication, Demos Helsinki collects and shares learnings from experts who assessed four desirable, undesirable, likely and unlikely scenarios of potential DLT-based public services in the EU.

Projects

Impact of algorithmic management on workers

In this digital era, the prevalent use of algorithmic management in the workplace has created a new set of challenges for workers and labour unions. This project studies the profound effects of algorithmic management on workers and labour organising in the Nordic context.

ARISE – Human-centric, agile, and ethical human-robot interaction (HRI)

Demos Helsinki and nine other front-running organisations in technology across Europe join forces in this project towards making industrial human-robot interaction (HRI) more accessible, cheaper, and easier to adopt. The particular focus of the project is on HRI in healthcare, intralogistics and manufacturing. 

Navigating impactful R&I policy and technology neutrality

As technological breakthroughs can play a critical role in addressing societal challenges, research & innovation (R&I) policy needs to shift the focus from merely appreciating the inherent value of technology development to exploring how they can be harnessed for achieving key societal goals. This project aims to produce a knowledge base to ensure Finland’s R&I policy is strategically impactful while remaining supportive of emerging technologies.

People

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