Blockchain Innovation Hub Finland

[IMPACT]

To ensure blockchain adoption and the use of blockchain for real-world value creation, we need to bring together creative problem solvers from diverse backgrounds. To get started fast, we partner with the existing blockchain, research and technology entrepreneurs' ecosystem in Finland. Academic rigor and the scientific method needs to be applied even in the most agile innovation process to make sure that all solutions are built on a steady, peer-reviewed foundation.

Together with Helsinki Blockchain Center and Blockchain Forum Finland we organize a monthly face-to-face innovation meetup in the premises of Helsinki XR Center (and ultimately in online spaces in the metaverse). In the meetup, we invite cross-sectoral participation to create solutions and teams that consist of researchers, entrepreneurs, students, educators, designers, artists and business professionals. In Fund9, we start welcoming proposals from this cross-sectoral network in Finland and we keep expanding this innovation collaboration for the rest of 2022.

The themes we will be initially focusing on are:

• Open Metaverse, Immersive Experiences and Play-to-Earn Gaming
• RealFi and Circular Economy: Blockchain Solutions to Real World Problems
• Self-Sovereign Identity for People and Machines in a Digital Society

We help the teams crystalize their solutions in virtual meetups. These solutions are then brought to Catalyst where eager Catalyst members can join the teams as co-proposers. We prudently facilitate this innovation and collaboration process, aiming to deliver 5-10 highly fundable proposals a year. The focus of this proposal is to bring the network together, to co-design the innovation process and to get ready for a full rollout in the autumn 2022.

To ensure quality of proposed ideas, our academic research partner LUT University, Finland can engage with the following activities:

1. LUT researchers will train on academic rigor and the scientific method that needs to be applied in the innovation process.
2. LUT researchers will speak of their research findings in the innovation meetups.
3. LUT will promote Catalyst among the student community so that they become interested in blockchain based innovation.

The resulting Blockchain Innovation Hub will serve as a testbed for cross-sectoral solutions. Once the model is tried and tested we open source the design and materials for the cross-sectoral blockchain innovation framework to be replicable elsewhere.

The challenge is to make Cardano-based solutions address real societal and business needs, not only to generate revenue but to maximize their impact. Too often blockchain initiatives are blinded by their own technological awesomeness and the teams end up with technically great solutions looking for relevant problems. Needless to say, that approach ends up in failure.

Finland is a country of mere 5 million highly educated people. Trust, integrity, honesty, fairness, equal opportunity and sustainability are values this society is built on. This is a country of design thinkers and savvy service designers who have extensive knowledge of various issues in the world. It is also a country of deep-thinking engineers and analytical scientists who are able to deliver high impact solutions to those wicked problems. Since the home market is so small, and the awareness of world issues is so high, Finns are used to coming up with "born global" solutions.

To harness this power of highly educated and networked knowledge workers, and to create those impactful and relevant blockchain solutions, there needs to be a solid innovation process and a dedicated group of capable facilitators.

Since 2017 Blockchain Forum Finland (nonprofit) and Helsinki Blockchain Center (for-profit) have done the groundwork in Finland. Now we, the enthusiastic Catalyst members, step in to connect all this to the global Cardano network. Solutions you can expect from the Blockchain Innovation Hub Finland will be readier, more well-researched and more believable in the eyes of the end users and investors outside of Catalyst. Once proven, funded and tested in Catalyst, the best success stories will be scaled up quickly with the help of our network.

Blockchain Innovation Hub is all about creating impactful, cross-sectoral, Cardano-based solutions that meet real societal and business needs.

In a highly networked and innovative environment, focus is the most important success factor. The more players there are in the network, the more discussion is needed but the solutions need to build on existing research, business acumen and resources of the partnering organizations. To deliver on our promises and to reach our goals, we need relentless focus on execution, on bringing everything together.

Creative dissent is welcome and encouraged in an innovation process. It is possible, however, that the various players in the ecosystem have differing agendas. We need to be careful in selecting who do we work with and first focus on the strengths and resources of the existing ecosystem.

Although the innovation network itself is ripe with diversity, and our perspectives, know-how and backgrounds vary, the initiating core team still appears predominantly as a bunch white males. We need to grow the team with diversity and inclusion in mind. Otherwise we soon risk running out of constructive ideas and could inadvertently become too narrow-minded.

Finally, some ideas generated might not be possible to implement on Cardano immediately. Therefore we need to be open for cross-chain collaboration. If a solution is better implemented elsewhere, we should try it, and then bridge it over to Cardano at a later stage.

[FEASIBILITY]

By the end of September 2022 we will have reached the following milestones:

• Conceptualization and design of the innovation process.
• Introduction of Project Catalyst in general and the concept of Blockchain Innovation Hub to the existing innovation network in Finland through monthly meetups and virtual follow-up calls.
• A multi-talented core team ready to welcome, evaluate and improve the innovative proposals sourced from the network.
• An international pool of highly capable proposal mentors ready to evaluate ideas and to guide the teams to write successful proposals.
• Establish visibility and awareness among the cross-sectoral innovation network and start sourcing for fresh ideas into Project Catalyst.
• Online tools set up for better collaboration.

Next steps

Further milestones and goals will be co-created with Helsinki Blockchain Center, Blockchain Forum Finland members and the innovation network, to create a sense of participation, cohesion and an ability to influence the common direction. Also feedback and ideas from the Catalyst community is much appreciated and taken into account. By the end of the year we aim to have produced 5-10 high quality and high caliber proposals by capable multi-talented teams. Once this process has been developed and perfected in Finland, we are happy to share it - especially with other small, advanced and collaborative innovation societies like New Zealand, Estonia, Switzerland, Singapore and Iceland.

This preliminary budget is planned for the months of May-September 2022:

• $5,000 Coordination of the initiative (Tomi Astikainen)
• $5,000 Design of the innovation process (Tomi Astikainen)
• $5,000 Incentives for the Cardano community (Projet Catalyst)
• $2,000 Activation of blockchain community (Blockchain Forum Finland)
• $3,000 Event and meetup organization costs (Helsinki Blockchain Center)
• $4,000 Innovation network engagement (Helsinki Blockchain Center)
• $1,000 Materials and external services (Helsinki Blockchain Center)
• $4,000 Academic Research Partner (LUT University, Finland)

$29,000 TOTAL

COORDINATOR

Tomi Astikainen is a Kickstarter, Connector and Storyteller who helps bring the teams and their solutions into Project Catalyst. He is a Veteran Community Advisor, active since Fund3.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomiastikainen/

SUPPORT TEAM

Proposal Mentors

Henrik Metsämäki is an entrepreneur in the area of self-sovereign identity. He is a proposer in Project Catalyst and therefore able to evaluate and help improve the proposals.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/henrikmetsamaki/

Hannu Lehtikangas is a Plutus Pioneer who can help evaluate technical side of proposals and function as a mentor for teams looking to propose solutions.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannu-lehtikangas/

Furthermore we can utilize existing apps and services specifically created for mentoring purposes (e.g. https://oneuponedown.org/)

Academic research

Dr. Najmul Islam is an Associate Professor (tenure track) of Digital Transformation at LUT University, a Docent at Tampere University and Research Fellow at the University of Turku. His research results on blockchain have been published in top journals and conferences. His team of six PhD researchers and two postdoc researchers are driving cutting edge blockchain research, including a recent project related to GDPR compliant blockchain service design funded by Business Finland. Dr. Islam has also acquired the necessary funding to establish blockchain lab infrastructure (ChainLab) at LUT for driving research and education on blockchain.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/najmul-islam-13696b51/

Partnerships

Markus Lehtonen is the CEO of Helsinki Blockchain Center. He is a top ranked Information Security expert and Blockchain technologies adviser focusing on cross-sectoral collaboration with customers, suppliers and law makers.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lehtosenmarkus/

PARTNERS

Helsinki Blockchain Center is the professional arm of the Blockchain Forum association. They can help source metaverse, identity and information security related innovations from entrepreneurs and developers in 16 cities and 7 universities. Scaling of these solutions can be done with multiple corporate partners and through an international network of blockchain associations. Read more: https://www.helsinkiblockchaincenter.com/

Helsinki Blockchain Center is in partnership with Helsinki XR Center’s developer hub that offers shared work space and equipment for teams, companies and individuals in their early phase of development of virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality projects. They support grassroots activity and innovation of metaverse-related teams, help with the transition into spatial computing mediums and reduce the early risks involved in hi-tech research and development. Read more: https://helsinkixrcenter.com/

The center is embedded in a creative campus that attracts 8,000 students in 25 fields of arts and design. Helsinki Blockchain Center has organized dozens of breakfast, afterwork and meetup events with them. We hope to bring many of these students as members of the Blockchain Forum Finland and as active participants in the blockchain innovation network. Presently Blockchain Forum Finland has about 500 members. Read more: https://www.blockchainforum.fi/

LUT University has been bringing together the fields of science and business since 1969. The international LUT community is comprised of approximately 6,500 students and experts engaged in scientific research and academic education. LUT has recently approved a budget to establish a Blockchain Lab infrastructure, led by Associate Professor Najmul Islam. The project coordinator Tomi Astikainen is also an alumnus of LUT university. Read more: https://www.lut.fi/web/en/

[AUDITABILITY]

Key deliverables:

• 5 monthly meetups (May-September 2022) with virtual follow-up calls.
• Innovation process design to make Catalyst known in the network, to collect seed level innovations and to start formation of the teams.
• A minimum of 25 actively participating innovators from outside of Catalyst
• A minimum of 25 Catalyst members actively engaging in the collaboration

Objectives:

• Engage the partner network representing government, nonprofit, higher education and business to start the innovation process in the autumn 2022.
• Create a process to form cross-functional, cross-sectoral and cross-chain startup teams.
• Connect the new startup teams and their leaders to a mentoring platform to get support.
• Solidify the recognition of Cardano in Finland, by participating actively in the events and services organized by Blockchain Forum Finland and Helsinki Blockchain Center.
• Laying the basis for greater Cardano action in Finland.

This is a new standalone proposal.

SDG Rating

The Blockchain Innovation Hub will use the SDG framework in classifying the generated needs and solutions. Indirectly it then ADDRESSES ALL THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS.

The goals it addresses directly are:

Goal 9. INDUSTRY, INNOVATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Goal 17. PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE GOALS: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development