FinEst Mini-Piloting –
Turning research into business
FinEst Mini-Piloting is one of the piloting programmes within the FinEst Twins project running in parallel with the medium and large scale pilots. The Mini-Piloting programme aims at improving the urban innovation ecosystem by fostering innovative solutions that stem from current research. The objective of this programme is to create successful start-up companies and to promote agile piloting practices to academic communities. The maximum funding available for each team is 15 000 Eur.
The first Mini-Piloting Call for Tenders was opened in June 2021 and the second round is expected to be launched during the spring of 2022. Within both call rounds, proposals need to address one or more of the following topics: Smart Mobility, Smart energy, Built environment, Smart city governance, Urban analytics & Data, Health & Well-being and Education.
Within the first piloting round, 11 proposals were submitted by the deadline, 18 August 2021. After checking the formal qualification of the proposals, they all were sent for the four Jury Members for careful assessment. The Jury members represented partner organizations as well as external expertise in order to achieve comprehensive understanding over the call topics and the current state-of-art.
In September, five proposals with the highest scores were conditionally selected to the programme, and they proceeded to the partner identification phase. During this period, Forum Virium Helsinki initiated further discussions with the teams in order to fine-tune the piloting plans as well as to gain deeper understanding over the needs of each team. Also, multiple Helsinki city departments and other stakeholders were contacted in order to give the best possible support for the five teams as well as to find ideal piloting partners and locations.
The real-life pilots will be launched during the spring of 2022 in the Helsinki metropolitan area. Based on the user feedback collected, the product prototypes will be further developed to better meet the needs of the customers. The testing and additional development phases will vary according to the needs and wishes of the teams as well as feedback given by the pilot host organisations. The five winning teams as well as their solutions will be published in February 2022.