Blog: Health Capital Helsinki is here for you, says Juha Paakkola

Juha Paakkola

I’d like to introduce you to the brand new Health Capital Helsinki team! We are a group of six, on a mission to make the Greater Helsinki health and life sciences ecosystem one of the best in the world.  To achieve this, we need a multi-disciplinary mix of business, marketing and communications knowledge and experience, and I’m happy to say that we have all these elements represented in the team. Now it’s time to roll our sleeves and get some action going on.

The way we see it, developing the health and life sciences ecosystem in the Greater Helsinki area is a balancing act between the following elements:

• How to get more business out of research
• How to help SME’s in the health and life sciences field to grow and flourish, including structural elements (availability of funding and personnel) and education (business, regulatory, internationalisation)
• How to conceptualise and commercialise our greatest assets to international stakeholders, to make the Greater Helsinki area an interesting target for investment
• Strengthening cooperation and collaboration with other health ecosystems in Finland and internationally, especially in the Nordic countries
• Sharing best practice. Enhancing the development and commercialisation of services for business and research (for instance living labs)
• And, importantly, making all the great things happening in the ecosystem visible. Health Capital Helsinki is first and foremost a marketing machine, that is at the service of the local stakeholders, both large and small.

One of the things that is keeping us busy is the HIMSS Europe 2020 conference, which will take place in May in Helsinki. We are heavily involved in the practical arrangements what comes to content, startup activities and marketing communications. The public sector in Finland has invested in HIMSS big time, and we want to ensure that our companies as well as public services get the most out of it.

Health Capital Helsinki’s mission is huge, and we don’t even imagine achieving it by ourselves. Therefore, we invite you to participate. Get in touch when you have news to share with the ecosystem, or when you need support and don’t know where to find it. Or feel free to share any development ides you may have. We believe in openness and flexibility and doing things together.

Let’s make the health ecosystem in the Greater Helsinki area rock and roll!

Yours,

Juha