Finland Times

Photo taken from facebook page of the Forum.

IT-Forum Northern Norway hosted for the second consecutive year a Tag-IT forum in Tromsø, Norway on March 18-19.

 

The two-day ICT conference was aimed at creating an international space to share knowledge, inspire new ideas, and help in establishing business relationships.

 

The forum this year focused on three main issues – design and communication, innovation and technology, and e-health. Digital experience, future of web design, disruptive marketing, rapid prototyping with SASS and Middleman, next generation of technologists, digital communication, and innovative healthcare were among the other topics discussed.

 

A delegation from BusinessOulu, a partner of IT-Forum Nord-Norge, the Norwegian Barents Secretariat working for over a year to connect ICT clusters in the Barents region, also took part in the programme.

 

Oulu delegation in the forum. Photo taken from the page of Arctic Airlink.

The delegation included Finnish ICT-companies and job-seeking ICT engineers from Oulu, northern Finland.

 

Oulu was named Europe’s most intelligent city in 2013. And no wonder, considering the city’s expertise in wireless technology, strong technical university and its research community. Oulu is also known for its thriving start-up and innovation ecosystem, where as many as 300 start-up companies have been established in recent years.

 

One of the main topics of the Tag IT forum, healthcare, is most relevant for Oulu, as research, competence and ICT applications of the bio and health sectors and the medical and wellbeing field are at the core of the Life Science field in Oulu.
 

The Finnish companies that took part in the forum offer a wide range of ICT competence, services and products – everything from digital marketing products, SW development services to highly qualified safety testing. The Oulu-based Codenomicon is behind the discovery of Heart Bleed, the security breech in OpenSSL which led to panic last spring in banks worldwide, among others.

 

“It seems that the common events we have attended are beginning to yield results. Firms have familiarized themselves with each other and the idea of collaborating across borders. This will create added value for the whole region in the future,” remarked Maja Terning from BusinessOulu which operates the Finland House in Tromsø.

 

Terning also termed the forum an opportunity for North-Norwegian companies to meet the Finnish experts.