The new Aalto University in Finland will bring together excited entrepreneurial young people from different backgrounds in engineering, economics and design.
The exchange of thoughts and ideas will provide a ground for a new corporate culture.
The youth unemployment is rising in Finland and the Government now hopes that more young people will start up their own company.
One guide is the newly founded Innovation University Aalto, which is almost ready. In the former laboratory facilities in Otaniemi in Espoo near Helsinki, where the Helsinki University of Technology is located, there is something interesting going on.
The premises have been renamed “the Design Factory”, and been equipped to carry out creative meetings which will be used by the Aalto University. Here, future economists, engineers and designers can develop new products in prototype form for the industry. The principle contributes 10,000 Euros and six months later the development work should be done.
Both the mobile phone giant Nokia and the elevator manufacturer Kone each have their own office here, which shows that the interest among large businesses exists.
At the same time, the idea is that more people should become interested in starting their own business. A precursor is Markus Nuotto, soon 25 years of age and a recently graduated engineer with a major in material engineering. In addition to the studies, he started the company Widsen along with other students at the Helsinki School of Economics.
They work to develop energy-saving solutions for homes based on RFID technology, an electromagnetic equivalence to barcodes. The modules are installed in the plug and give the user real-time information on electricity consumption.
- One can for example monitor electricity consumption via mobile phones.
The development work is funded by the Technical Research Center, VTT, which also approved young entrepreneurs to exploit the patents underpinning. The hardest part is finding enough good components for the modules.
- Within the IT industry, a computer is enough in order to be able to write codes.
Markus Nuotto is also one of the members of the board in the Aalto Entrepreneurship Society, a club that has 1600 members in only a few months.
- It is surprising how great the interest is, says Nuotto.
Overall, the interest in becoming entrepreneurs among Finnish adolescents is small and Markus Nuotto thinks it is partly the university´s fault. The teaching and research are planned for the large companies' needs. Young people are unsure how to proceed in order to consider starting a business and are afraid to fail.
- We think that this fear is unnecessary, people have simply preconceptions. We will try to influence the courses offered and the teaching as well.
At the same time, it appears that many of Aalto University´s students have already started businesses or have a product idea or product plan.
Cecilia Helland