Männistö And Tikka Spark Conversation On Finnish Startup Ecosystem
Lasse Männistö and Taneli Tikka came out yesterday with a three point suggestion to renew the governmental work regarding startups and growth companies. The timing is intentional and perfect, later tonight Aalto Entrepreneurship Society will host a panel discussion with some of the most renown business men and women Finland has. Taneli Tikka is one of the more acknowledged Finnish serial entrepreneurs and Lasse Männistö, a member of the Helsinki City Council, is a candidate running for Finnish Parliament.
The recommendations can be read on Lasse Männistö's website, for example, but we'll summarise the points and other discussion it has sparked. Like we've written before, Finland will see its parliamentary elections in April and many startup entrepreneurs would like to see the topic included among the other important discussion items. Many, rightly so, believe focus on startups is one of the key ways to improve the economy in the long term.
The Future Is In Entrepreneurship
To kick off this week I want to take things to the macro level regarding entrepreneurship, politics and media. It is a topic we seldom talk about as we promote entrepreneurship here at ArcticStartup from the bottom of our hearts each and every day. I want to stress the importance of growth companies in our economies, as it is something that isn't given too much column space in the more traditional media. This is also one of the reasons ArcticStartup was founded - to give more coverage to growth companies and help them achieve more.
The topic in itself is very simple so we don't need to back it up with passion, all we need to do is look at the statistics. I've gathered some statistics from the Swedish statistics bureau (SCB) and the Confederation of Finnish Industries (CFI). While these only represent the systems in Finland and Sweden, I'm sure this can be extrapolated to other regions in Northern Europe with some adjustments. In this economic era, I'm focussing on the employment contribution these companies make to our economies since it is usually thought to be the most effective form of social welfare available.
Vigo Accelerator Only The First Part In Finnish Growth Ecosystem
I had the pleasure of meeting with Janne Känkänen from the Finnish Ministry of Employment and Economy, the operational primus motor behind the Vigo startup accelerator programme that the Finnish government has been putting together in the recent months. I for one am very suspicious of where the government wants to take the growth entrepreneurship as an ecosystem, but was very glad to find out that there has been plenty of productive progress happening behind the scenes.
The Vigo, startup accelerator, that we wrote about earlier (but did not know the name back then) is only one concrete realisation of this new programme and its results. Mr Känkänen also told us that growth entrepreneurship ecosystem has been understood to require special methods of assistance and the current economic climate has further sped up those requirements.
