Who are the key stakeholders?
Health Capital Helsinki is a three-year long project funded by a strong alliance:
- The cities of Helsinki and Espoo
- Two universities: the University of Helsinki and Aalto University
- Three universities of applied sciences: Metropolia, Haaga-Helia and Laurea
- Helsinki University Hospital, the largest hospital in Finland
The team is a group of five, and our backgrounds vary from pharma, health tech and start-ups to marketing and communications.
What are the main objectives of your ecosystems?
We are a matchmaker and a marketing machine, on a mission to make our health ecosystem the best in the world. In practice, we have our companies’ interest in mind: we want to help them get the support they need to grow and flourish. Our team also helps universities in their efforts to create business out of research. For an international company, HCH is a natural point of contact to open doors and help find the best collaboration partners. This service is often needed domestically as well, because the ecosystem is just like ecosystems are: a myriad of partnering organisations and activities in constant movement. Sometimes it helps to have a guide there, and we are happy to take that role.
Why did you join the ECHAlliance Network of Ecosystems?
We see tremendous value in the international dimension of ECH Alliance.
Finland is a small country, and to grow any start-up or research initiative must be international from day one. The more connections we have to ecosystems around the globe, the better we can support the entrepreneurs find the best contacts for them.
Who is missing from your ecosystem in terms of stakeholders
In Finland, we have great strengths in the areas of engineering and life sciences. Sometimes help is needed to better communicate those strengths and make business out of them. There are no missing stakeholders per se, but sometimes efforts may be thin and scattered. We try to help stakeholders to find synergies between themselves and to combine forces for maximal impact.
Which ecosystems are you looking to collaborate with?
We are looking forward to meeting as many ecosystems as possible! Especially we’re looking forward to joining forces with the ones that have similar interest with us. We believe that many of them may be in the Nordic region.
