The second Geomob Finland event took place in Oulu on 9 November at the OAMK campus. Geomob is an event series and podcast that showcases ideas and innovations in the field of location information. It also provides a forum for networking.
Geomob, which has been operating worldwide for fifteen years, has now established itself in Finland. This time there were about 30 participants in Oulu. The audience included representatives from business, the public sector, the research community and students, and there were lively discussions in between and after the presentations.
The evening’s presentations provided some interesting highlights of what is currently happening in the industry.
Ossi Kotavaara and Marton Magyar from the University of Oulu presented the Transformative Cities project and ongoing research on the modes of transport people use in Finnish cities. The study uses mobile phone data from Telia.
Oskari Häkkinen and Suvi-Tuulia Haakana from Spatineo spoke about the EcoInsight project, which is building a platform that combines satellite and other data. The aim is to provide an easy-to-use interface for monitoring various environmental phenomena.
Miika Sikala showed us what’s under the hood at Biila. Biila is a company that provides car transfer services. The presentation showed how Biila is using data and artificial intelligence to optimise transfers and solve logistical problems.
Before moving on to the networking part, Tapio Heikkilä from VTT took the stage. The last presentation of the evening was about the FlexiGroBots project, which is developing digitalisation and precision farming in agriculture using robotics and artificial intelligence.
In keeping with the Geomob concept, after the presentations the audience was asked to vote for the best performance of the evening. This time most of the credit and glory went to Biila’s performance, and Miika went home with a small prize.
“All the presentations were really interesting and it’s great that we now have activities in Oulu too. This was also the most northerly Geomob ever organised! The concept is clearly working in Finland. People are longing for events where there is also time for informal networking,” says Joonas Jokela from the Location Innovation Hub.
The event was organised by the Oulu regional office of the Location Innovation Hub.
“The event attracted professionals from companies, start-ups, public sector organisations, researchers and students interested in location data. It was great to follow and participate in the discussions and networking after the presentations. The two hours we had planned for this were used to the full,” says Jussi Kangasoja from Arctic Drone Labs.
Miika Sikala from Biila was also interviewed for the Geomob podcast. Listen to the episode on the Geomob website.
The Geomob Finland events will continue in the spring. Would you like to suggest a theme or topic? Or would you like to give a presentation at a Geomob event? Contact the Location Innovation Hub.
