Finland Post Welfare

The event will be in Finnish. You can register here.

1994-2008 were years of continuous economic growth in Finland. This growth was spurred by Nokia's success. However, we were not able to reduce our national debt during this period. Vice versa. 300,000 new jobs will need to be created within 10 years - just to curb the debt rate of the Finnish state.

March 21st, Finland Post Welfare will start a revolution in Finland. Worried about the gloomy future ahead of us, we the students and future architects of Finnish prosperity are taking matters into our own hands and addressing the elephant in the national living room. In fact, if something radical is not done fast, by 2038 we will all be working in the public sector.

To make this future crisis into a nation-wide hot topic, Aalto Entrepreneurship Society and its partners are gathering some of the most admired opinion leaders and iconic businessmen, as well as students, entrepreneurs and politicians, to Finlandia Hall for an evening of straight talk and honest concerns. These themes are especially important now with the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Finland Post Welfare

The open event will include speakers such as Jorma Ollila, Risto Siilasmaa and Björn Wahlroos. They are coming to share their views on the Finnish economic policy and development. The theme will be the prerequisites for future Finnish economic competitiveness and the kinds of decisions and actions that will create them.

In addition we've invited experienced serial entrepreneurs to explain what startups, which are not well understood in Finland, need to succeed and create the new wealth and jobs our society greatly need.

While regions like Silicon Valley and Israel have produced formidable success stories with the help of public policy, our intention is not to copycat their agendas. What we want is to see Finland choose a path of self-renewal and profitable growth based on our own strengths and capabilities.

According to the Confederation of Finnish Industries (www.ek.fi/www/en/), the vast majority of new jobs are created in startups. There has been little response to this apparent and urgent need. In the past 20 years, no 1000+ employee firms have been born in Finland; the last technology-heavy IPO took place with F-Secure - over ten years ago.

Finland has a strong culture of family entrepreneurship as well as the world's highest R&D spending per capita. However, in terms of wealth-producing high growth ventures, Finland lags behind its Scandinavian and global counterparts. Scalable startups and SMEs need drastically differing support systems and the government, as well as the general public, needs to be educated on what makes growth entrepreneurs tick.

Aalto Entrepreneurship Society and its partners question the sustainability of Finnish economy and are calling together influential business leaders, students, entrepreneurs, politicians and YOU to participate in the event.

Venue: Finlandia Hall, Helsinki

Date: Monday, March 21st 19:00-21:00 (Doors open at 18:00)