What name would you choose for your business? How would it support your brand? In what ways do intellectual property rights relate to name selection? These topics were explored in the InnoWebinar

As you may have noticed, our “How to Sell Your Half-Baked Idea for Millions” course was an April Fools' joke. At the Innovation Centre, we don’t help sell half-baked ideas to investors, but we do help refine them into diamonds!

What kind of projects received funding from Business Finland in 2024? What opportunities do the renewed BF funding instruments offer to the University of Oulu and our researchers? We dived into these topics at Business Finland Champions Award.

To make our experts more accessible to you, we are introducing them in this blog series. First up is Ville Saarenpää, our business expert.

Have a business idea you’d like to develop? Want to test its feasibility without taking on major financial risk? That’s exactly what Proof of Concept (PoC) funding is for – and it has been available at the University of Oulu for ten years now!

These entrepreneurs from Oulu prove that work friends can help you reach goals you’d never achieve alone! They share how their friendship and business ventures began, and how they continue to strengthen each other.

Researcher Ville Kaikkonen and his team are developing a new technology specifically designed to prevent icing on drones.

Companies from Kanta-Häme visited the University of Oulu as part of a regional Rahoitusagentti project. The purpose of the visit was to help companies find suitable research partners, thereby fostering innovation and business growth.

Janne Taskinen gained work experience at Metsä Tissue in Slovakia.

The new year has begun, and it’s time to review the results of innovation activities at the University of Oulu! The university and its researchers have remained highly active across nearly all areas of innovation. In fact, we set a couple of new records in inventions and patents, promising great potential for commercialization in the coming years.

Do you sew clothing from Marimekko fabrics or knit socks adorned with familiar designs like Unikko, Karhu, or Pätkis? It’s essential to understand when you need permission and when you’re free to use patterns and instructions, as these may be protected by intellectual property rights.

In the first part of this series, we delved into the megatrends envisioned by Frost & Sullivan's experts, painting a picture of the world in 2040. Previously, we explored the first five megatrends; now, we turn our attention to the remaining five. 

What will society look like in 2040? What megatrends can we identify today that will shape the future? Guided by the insights of Frost & Sullivan’s experts, we delved into these questions and explored their report highlighting 10 pivotal trends set to redefine industries, society, and the way we operate.

Mikael Pentikäinen, CEO of Entrepreneurs of Finland, joined us to discuss how universities and businesses can combine forces to discover even more avenues for collaboration.

The University Business Forum 2024 brought together over 200 participants to explore how collaboration and digitalization can pave the way to a more sustainable future.

Rheumatologist and researcher Johanna Huhtakangas, along with her team, is developing an innovative treatment for inflammatory joint diseases. Their aim is a solution that would work as effectively as cortisone — but without the side effects. In the future, the treatment might center on a compound of vitamin D.

"This job ties directly into my studies. I got hands-on experience in exactly what I'm studying", says Aleksi Korpela, a third-year civil engineering student at the University of Oulu.

Anna Pesonen has joined us to streamline the contract signing process and ensure smooth integration into the document management system.

Miska Visuri’s company, LessonLab, is on a mission to infuse education with a contemporary twist and fresh perspective. They offer customized, gamified learning solutions designed to train employees in an engaging and interactive way.

Researcher Timo Liimatainen and his team are developing new technology for hospitals where artificial intelligence helps patients position themselves for X-rays. The project has received Business Finland’s Research to Business funding.