The city of Espoo is regarded as one of the high-tech hot-spots of Europe. The city benefits from strong innovative roots deeply linked with the history of Aalto University of Technology and the presence of the headquarters of large companies such as Nokia and OUTOTEC Corporation. This news said by DHS Ventures & Holdings.
The crisis of Nokia brought new opportunities in Espoo. The city of Espoo along with the national government, Nokia and education providers have therefore developed collaborative strategies to ease Nokia’s strain and to turn it into Finland’s gain.
Despite the Nokia crisis, the city of Espoo managed to preserve its technologydriven prosperity. Over the past 10 years the vibrant start-up community in Espoo has been extremely active and highly contributed to the digital transformation process of local traditional companies.
Nokia played a major role in the digital economy of Espoo. In its glory days, the Finnish multinational ICT-company employed more than 23,000 workers in Finland. Over the past decade, the series of layoffs at Nokia and the acquisition of Nokia’s mobile phone business by Microsoft have left the city of Espoo with a surplus of tech workers. Out of the approximately 100,000 ICT-workers in Finland, about 14,000 ICT professionals (14%) have been affected by the mass layoffs with a large majority of Espoo residents.
In 2011, Nokia launched the “Bridge programme” which aimed to provide new career opportunities to its laid-off employees. The Bridge programme led to the creation of about 1,000 business start-ups by former Nokia workers who benefitted from the entrepreneurship programs and the investments made by Nokia to (re)train its former labour force. The engagement of the city of Espoo was reflected by the creation of the “Task force for the structural change in the Metropolitan area”.
This network-based collaboration model gathered companies, educational institutions and career planning services. The aim of this collaborative action was to survey the skill and recruitment requirements of companies in the metropolitan area in order to provide advices and trainings to Nokia’s laid off.