The AI HUB  of the Turku Business Region is unique in terms of enablers and users. Our 4 universities have more than 40.000 students that are potential future talents to the field of AI development. The region’s industries and the public sector have invested – and committed themselves – to the development and usage of AI and other digital technologies in their operations.

The positive structural change due to the strong development of a variety of industries, such as maritime, health, clean an creative industries. This has also made the region a forerunner in terms of positive economic development of the whole of Finland. Companies are recruiting new personnel and the need for workforce exceeds the supply. This is especially true in the field of ICT where the demand for qualified workforce has remained high for more than two decades.

In the following, you can find detailed information about the region’s AI-related activities, including education and potential partners for co-development. The regional development company Turku Science Park Ltd is hosting the co-development activities. Please contact Michael Lindholm at Turku Science Park Ltd for more information.

Michael Lindholm

+358 40 502 0089
Levarage from the EU 2014-2020 and European Social Fund logos and Regional Council of Southwest Finland Logo

AIBA is a new way of learning how to implement AI technology into your business processes. AIBA is a cooperation between University of Turku, Åbo Akademi University, Turku Science Park Ltd, The Association of Entrepreneurin Turku and Turku Chamber of Commerce. The main aim with AIBA is to raise awareness in companies to the level which enables the start of different AI pilot projects. The networking of companies and AI experts is also important.

AIBA autumn 2021 will start at the beginning of october if at least 12 companies join. AIBA helps you and your company to define your AI idea. This can mean what kind of technology you need for building a bot, how you can use natural language processing for processing customer feedback or how you can analyze speech.

The different parts are the following, click here for more details and time schedule (Note: subject for change):

PART 1: Introduction to AI (2 cu finnish opintopiste)

  1. Introduction to AI
  2. Machine learning and ethics
  3. Business plan 

Part 2: Practical AI development (3 cu)

  1. Practical programming tools
  2. Machine learning methods
  3. Data manipulation and visualization
  4. Natural language processing
  5. AI Models and pilot plan polishing

We look at your needs and how you can continue with pilots and/or how you can dig deeper into the subject. Where can you get more help and is there research going on that you could benefit from. What financing could there be available for the next steps?

The duration of the AIBA is eight half day sessions during a two month period. Add the homework you need to do in your company. We are aiming for fast starts of pilots and also taking care of the fact that these courses must fit into the university study program. It is important for all of us that AIBA students also have the possibility to take other more in depth courses.

AIBA is a new way of getting both companies and the university to create new business and research. It is an excellent way of getting new knowledge into the companies as well as introducing practical challenges for the researchers and the students,  says Tapio Salakoski, Ph.D Dean University of Turku.In cooperation with:

 

In 2016 the European Commission launched the first industry-related initiative for digitizing the European industry. One of the most important pillars of this initiative are Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs). These are one-stop-shops that help companies to become more competitive using digital technologies.

We have two Digital Innovation hubs in our area; The Health DIH and the Maritime DIH. We are a part of the Robocoast EDIH consortium.

The Health DIH, or formally Auria Clinical Informatics (ACI) has access to structural, textual, signal and imaging data that originates from the clinical processes. Together with the medical domain knowledge, advanced statistics, artificial intelligence and visual analytics, this provides a comprehensive ‘360-degree’ view of the patient care. This view combined with the longitudinal patient records, and other characteristics unique to Finnish healthcare, make ACI a standout partner for AI (and other digital technology) development in the health domain.

ACI is part of a larger healthcare development ecosystem Health Campus Turku (HCT). The ecosystem forms a significant multidisciplinary knowledge cluster within medicine, social and health care, and technology, offering unique opportunities for research, innovation and corporate collaboration. Health Campus Turku collaboration involves the Hospital District of Southwestern Finland, University of Turku, Åbo Akademi University, Turku University of Applied Sciences, Novia University of Applied Sciences and Turku Science Park Ltd.

The contact person for this DIH in Turku Science Park Oy is Network Manager Janne Lahtiranta at HealthTurku.

The Maritime DIH is the One Sea – Autonomous Maritime Ecosystem which is coordinated by DIMECC.  The contact person for this DIH in Turku Science Park Oy is Network Manager Vesa Erkkilä at MaritimeTurku.

Turku AI society
Turku AI Society is a university community researching and promoting the Nordic view on the impacts of artificial intelligence. This group reaches around 600 persons.  Everyone is free to join this group.

TechTurkuAI

This is a FaceBook group of around 300 persons in the area. This group mainly focuses on news and stories around practical AI activities. Everyone is free to join this group.

TechTurkuAVR
Related to AI but not purely (whatever that means) TechTurkuAVR is the group talking about AR and VR technologies. Meetings for 2020 will be announced during the year. The group has some goals and these are: Always practical examples, always talk about the technology and always share your information. This group has just under 100 members.

 Open data Turku
Turku region open data group promotes opening data and open data usage. Open data is publicly available data that can be universally and readily accessed, used, and redistributed free of charge. Group has about 300 members and several events per year. For more information see Facebook group Open Data Turku and Kumppanuusfoorumi

Maritime cluster
MaritimeTurku, the strong co-operation network built around the maritime know-how and innovation activities provides a wide range of services to the R&D needs of the industry. The global market challenges of the future require continuous renewal and new exploration in research and business. Alongside strong shipbuilding industry the region has a long history of know-how in offshore and Arctic technologies.
Please contact CEO Niko Kyynäräinen

Clean cluster
Innovation activities and academic research, paired with expertise in chemistry and material sciences, provide the basis for the strong know-how and remarkable number of innovative startups and growth companies within the Turku region. The business operations of the most important companies are based on the handling of biomasses, industrial by-product flows and waste materials, and processing them into new products.
Please contact Senior Executive Linda Fröberg-Niemi

Experience cluster
The Turku region is an important Finnish cluster of the creative field and experience industry. The ExperienceTurku brand covers e.g. AV industry and film production, Game industry and Development of travel business. Creative industries employ around 8,000 people in 2,500 companies in the Turku region. The total turnover of the companies in the industry is 1.3 billion euros.
Please contact Senior Executive Teija Raninen

Health cluster
The Turku region efficiently combines long-term top research in life science with diverse business operations, and expertise in commercialisation and internationalisation. The focus lies especially in the research and business operation in pharmaceutical and diagnostics industries, as well as health foods and materials technology. From the beginning of 2018, this extensive health and well-being concept was named HealthTurku which replaces the previous BioTurku cluster that focused mainly on pharmaceutical and diagnostics expertise.
Please contact Senior Executive Tero Piispanen

This is an EAKR funded project to develop the AI activities in the South-West Finland area. This project has four main goals:

  1. Getting a picture of what is done in the area
  2. Creating a network and developing the network capabilities
  3. Connect to national networks and programs
  4. Connect to international networks and programs

You can check the project content in more detail here AI hankehakemus (Finnish, not available in English)

Project reports (in Finnish):
VS tekoälyverkosto tutkimus yhteenveto 20190201.pdf
VS tekoälyverkosto haastattelututkimus yhteenveto 20200610.pdf
VS tekoälyverkosto loppuraportti 20200701.pdf

Levarage from the EU 2014-2020 and European Social Fund logos and Regional Council of Southwest Finland Logo

Auria Clinical Informatics was formed in 2018 when Auria Biobank and the Centre for Clinical Informatics at Turku University Hospital decided to unite their brands under the common Auria name.

The information accumulating from the treatment of patients is a valuable data source, although often difficult to utilize in research. Researchers and specialists need high-quality data in a format that is amenable to statistical and mathematical analysis with sensitive information removed, pseudonymised or anonymised depending on the research question. Auria Clinical Informatics carefully organizes, harmonizes and maintains the data in the commensurated data warehouse at the Hospital District of Southwest Finland, and provides both research as a service (RaaS) and secure data analysis platform (DAP) service for data-driven real world analysis studies. The service also covers the hospital districts of Satakunta and Vaasa.
Contact person Arho Virkki CEO

The first aim for Turku City Data is to provide tools and methods for utilizing data from the City of Turku. Our mission is to process the data and help our partners to create knowledge-based solutions and improve our living environment – node by node.

Contact person
CEO Jussi Vira
jussi.vira@turkucitydata.fi

 

The City of Turku provides open data that can be used freely, without contacting and without charge by anyone. This includes free of charge support service to realize open data utilization.

Turku is one of the leading cities in the world regarding 3D-modelling of the city infrastructure. Accuracy and coverage is according to very high standards.

Please check website data.turku.fi (mainly in Finnish).

For more information send an email to opendata@turku.fi

One of the strong UTU focuses is in in future technology ethics. Areas of ethics are AI, Data Economy, eGovernement, eHealth, Freedom of Expression, Privacy, Games and Gamification and Intellectual Property rights. View more information regarding the ethics research at Future Ethics. Read more about the UTU research here.

The AIGA project (2020–2022) explores how to execute responsible artificial intelligence (AI) in practice. The purpose and mission of the AIGA program is to enable executing responsible AI in practice through laying out best-in-class governance mechanisms and auditing principles for algorithmic decision-making and building a commercialization roadmap for AI governance and auditing.

AI Academy
is a center of University of Turku for artificial intelligence research and education
. AI Academy aims to bring all the different branches of science together with artificial intelligence education.  Our goal is to create the ground work for collaboration within University of Turku and for companies that want a better understanding of AI – how it works and how it will affect you.

To answer the call for more AI education, Turku AI Academy will provide students with a AI minor subject (Tekoäly25) they can incorporate to their degree. The main focus of our AI minor is to educate the basic principles of artificial intelligence and how it’s used in the economy, judicial system or the ethical problems we face. The minor is set to start in January 2020, the enrollment started in September 2019.

AI Business Academy (AIBA) is a education for companies developing their AI ideas and run by both the University of Turku (UTU) and Åbo Akademi university. More information in the AIBA section on this page. Contact person in UTU is Paavo Nevalainen, paavo.nevalainen@utu.fi