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Finland and Poland connect for competitiveness

The Polish city of Gdansk is known for its maritime industry and also has a booming tech scene.

Turku Business Region

The business regions of Southwest Finland and Wrocław and Gdańsk in Poland have agreed to establish the European ICT Alliance to co-operate and create new business opportunities between the areas.

Digitalisation and the use of data are the underlying drivers for the co-operation to realise gains in the focus industries of maritime, logistics and services. The alliance has already welcomed over 300 ICT companies, thanks to connectors Turku Science Park and InvestGDA in Poland.

“We see great potential for co-operation between Polish and Finnish organisations and companies. Finland has a highly innovative business scene, and Polish companies, on the other hand, have a deep technical specialisation,” told Michał Zacher, ITCorner board member and CEO at Vazco. “The European ICT Alliance allows us to create an ecosystem which empowers synergies and is beneficial for members of all our organisations.”

Through the alliance, the parties aim to supplement the existing European business infrastructure, wherein European Digital Innovation Hubs support companies that are in the early stages of digitalisation and the Horizon programme those that are further along. The alliance’s goal is to develop conditions for the wider use of data-driven test platforms, essential for testing new products and services.

“We are looking forward [to] working with the Port of Gdynia to accelerate the development of smart ports by offering our data platform for sharing data among actors in the port,” said Sami Kasonen, VP of sales marketing at Awake.AI, which is developing a smart port and shipping platform in Turku.

The call to ecosystems is a sign of the evolving nature of global commerce, where the company that is able to tap into relevant global and regional value chains is often in a position to succeed.

By: Samuli Ojala
21.10.2020