Image Credits: © Urban Mill
| Country | Finland | |
| City | Helsinki | |
| Name | Urban Mill | |
| Date | 2013 | |
| Description | Urban Mill is an incubator for urban innovations located in Aalto University campus, on the periphery of Helsinki, as part of the Smart City movement in the Metropolitan Region of Helsinki.
Opened in 2013, Urban Mill is a former factory transformed into a large co-working and co-creation space. This platform brings together local and international research labs and start-ups working on projects related to the built environment, the ubiquitous and responsive city, urban services and urban life transformation. Here, innovation actors collaborate, test their prototypes, present their projects and debate with citizens, meet potential investors and much more. (https://citiesintransition.eu/place/urban-mill) Urban Mill brings urban developers together with residents and other users of the urban environment. Public and private sector institutions, researchers, new entrepreneurs and students have a place to share ideas with the users of the built environment. Urban Mill is a venue for events and a smart co-working space for entrepreneurs and developers. Simultaneously, Urban Mill is an innovation accelerator that is connected to other spaces needed by the community.
How does it work and who participates?
The main partners of the program are the City of Espoo and Aalto University. A private company is responsible for developing the Urban Mill concept, operating the space and arranging the services. To give you some numbers, during the pilot phase 2013-2014, 25,000+ people participated in 1,000+ registered events; 5,000+ visitors from Finland and Abroad; 500+ pioneers participated in development; 300+ organisations and projects as users; 50+ proto/demo/startups through Living lab process. All in all, Urban Mill operations have involved a total of more than 50 000 participants, 1500 events, 1000 users, 500 organizations. Urban Mill has helped to experiment 100 prototypes and to increase its 50 start-up companies. |
|
| Urban Co-Governance | Moderate | |
| Enabling State | Strong | |
| Poolism | Strong | |
| Experimentalism | Moderate | |
| tech Justice | Moderate | |
| Website | https://urbanmill.org/ | |
| References, sources, contact person(s) | https://citiesintransition.eu/place/urban-mill
Contact : Kari Mikkelä, Ececutive Producer Lars Miikki, Producer |
|
Helsinki