News

The City of Helsinki and Aalto University set up an incubator to promote clean and sustainable urban solutions

The aim of the incubator for clean and sustainable urban solutions is to create growth-oriented companies that focus on solving the challenges faced by modern cities.
Visio

The City of Helsinki and Aalto University are establishing an incubator for Helsinki-based startups, called Urban Tech Helsinki.

Urban Tech Helsinki’s goal is to draw new experts and businesses to the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, and to support and expedite the formation and early growth of fresh, especially research-oriented companies.

Additional aims of the incubator activities are to support the burgeoning of research-based innovations into international business and to cooperate closely with large enterprises that invest in sustainable urban solutions. A special emphasis will be on clean energy, mobility, sustainable construction, the circular economy, waste management and urban food production.

“Urban Tech Helsinki is an excellent addition to Helsinki’s innovation ecosystem, because the City wants to take a more active role as a platform for interesting and result-oriented innovations that seek solutions to the greatest global challenges of our time and generate new export opportunities. I am confident that by offering a functional city as a platform for local companies, Helsinki has every chance to attract the best talent and ideas, even from other countries. As an investment in Helsinki’s capacity to reinvent itself, Urban Tech Helsinki enables the development of world-class innovations in an entire new way,” says Mayor Jan Vapaavuori.

Together in building a sustainable future

Urban Tech Helsinki also promotes the strategic partnership goals of the City of Helsinki and Aalto University, which include international cooperation, visibility, communication partnerships and providing employment for international experts.

“The goals of Urban Tech Helsinki align very nicely with Aalto University’s strategy for building a sustainable future. Aalto’s aim is to remodel society through research-based information, creativity and entrepreneurial thinking. As a partner, we will make Aalto’s vast international network and first-rate expertise in research and innovation available to companies and the City. Urban Tech Helsinki will substantially bolster the capacity of the innovation infrastructure in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area to produce sustainable solutions that tackle the world’s foremost challenges,” says President of Aalto University Ilkka Niemelä.

“Together with its partners, Helsinki will build the best innovation ecosystem in the world and accelerate the process of solving global sustainability challenges. The Urban Tech Helsinki incubator brings together Finnish top-tier research, Helsinki’s excellent start-up ecosystem and global challenges related to the sustainability of cities, which offer opportunities worth billions of euros to Finland and innovative Finnish companies,” says Santtu von Bruun, Head of Innovations and New Experiments for the City of Helsinki.

Urban Tech Helsinki will operate in the premises of start-up campus Maria 01 and on Aalto University’s Otaniemi Campus. It will also have close links to other innovation and incubator activities taking place on university campuses throughout region.

The incubator operations will be non-profit-making. The cooperation agreement between Helsinki and Aalto University with regard to the Urban Tech Helsinki activities will remain in effect 2021–2025. The aim is to open applications for the incubator in June.

Urban tech as a term refers to technology start-ups that focus on solving urban challenges sustainably with technology.

Additional information:

City of Helsinki:

Marja-Leena Rinkineva
Director of Economic Development
[email protected]
050 5599 183

Santtu von Bruun
Head of Innovations and New Experiments
[email protected]
040 3577 452

Aalto University:

Janne Laine
Vice President for Innovation
[email protected]
050 4656 835

Tomi Erho
Head of Innovation Ecosystem Services
[email protected]
050 5355 653

  • Published:
  • Updated:

Read more news

White Aalto logo with exclamation mark standing in the middle of Otaniemi campus in the summertime
Campus, University Published:

Aalto University Foundation issues two bonds in the aggregate amount of EUR 150 million

The net proceeds from the Notes will be predominantly applied for refinancing existing loans taken out to finance real estate investments but also for general corporate purposes.
image of a wooden pillar from little finlandia and the text time out
Research & Art Published:

Aalto University shakes up construction practices at the New European Bauhaus Festival in Brussels

The exhibition Time Out! will be on show in Brussels from 9 to 13 April 2024 as part of the NEB Festival.
Photo collage of some of the actions funded by the Sustainability Action Booster grant
Campus, University Published:

Aalto University funds students' sustainability actions with tens of thousands in a year – “This is something we haven't seen in anywhere else”

Aalto University’s Sustainability Action Booster is a pioneering grant designed to support student-owned sustainability actions on campus and beyond.
Young architects sitting on the outdoor staircase and smiling
Cooperation Published:

Ella Kaira and Matti Jänkälä to curate the Pavilion of Finland at the 2025 Biennale Architettura

The theme of the chosen exhibition concept by the architect duo is the preservation of modern architecture.