What is the Future of Digital Product Passports for ICT Devices?

One of the corporate partners working with the Information Technology Program (ITP) of the School of Business was Technology Industries of Finland. As part of the collaboration, Technology Industries assigned a project to two teams of students: to evaluate the feasibility of a Digital Product Passport (DPP).

There were two different teams working on the project. Team Bear’s Paw consisted of Fredrik Lindstedt, Anna Song, Oona Oikarinen, Kasperi Kohi and Phuong Nguyen and Team Sunburst consisted of Jessica Korhonen, Nikolaos Magalios, Olli Paakkola, Eliisa Lindfors and Oliver Attwood.

‘The task was to deliver a feasibility study around a digital product passport for industrial ICT devices that enhanced the circular economy of such devices,’ explains Fredrik Lindstedt of Team Bear’s Paw. Lindstedt is a 3rd year Chemical and Process Engineering student at Aalto University who worked on the project. ‘At first I was super excited, then I got overwhelmed, and finally interested. It was an extensive task that needed a lot of work but revolved around a current problem and was a possible solution for a sustainable future.’

The students worked from June to August to complete their project. To analyze the feasibility of a DPP they conducted extensive research into previous attempts at similar projects and conducted interviews with many key stakeholders. By doing this, they were able to come up with future scenarios for how a DPP could be implemented.

‘The result came out great as a thorough study on a digital product passport and its possibilities,’ Lindstedt continues. The students had a great dynamic and way of working, and such became more and more invested in the final result as the summer progressed. The summer was intense, but the projects grew to be personal to the students. ‘I actually would have liked to continue with the project to make concrete online data platform business models, just to experiment and challenge myself as an engineering student,’ stated Lindstedt.

The work done by the team was well received by Technology Industries of Finland. ‘The teams were very well prepared. I really admire the commitment and level of professionalism from both teams,’ stated Laura Juvonen, Executive Director of Growth and Skills at Technology Industries of Finland. ‘I compare them to a professional level in working life in their analysis, argumentation and ways of working.’

Lindstedt described studying in ITP and working on the project as ‘truly a great experience with a lot of new frameworks, methods and mindsets that I think can be applied to many other fields than just the online business aspects. It was fresh and intriguing to work with something else than just traditional engineering studies.’ The project was done as part of the Digital and Interactive Ecosystems track of ITP, which consists of courses on Digital Marketing, Platforms and Ecosystems, and Web and Mobile Analytics.

ITP is a multidisciplinary minor program, organized every summer by Aalto, which is celebrating its 25th birthday this year. An integral part of the program are corporate partners and projects done in collaboration with them. Close collaboration with companies enables the students to pursue their careers and gain employment from these companies.