Digitalents Helsinki

Status

completed

City

Helsinki

Main actors

City Government, Private Sector

Project area

Whole City/Administrative Region

Duration

2017 - 2020

Developing the work life skills of young people in a modern and creative community!

Digitalents Helsinki enables young people to participate in an inspiring community that creates innovation and builds expertise through experimentation. This involves, for example, coding, software development, game development, graphic design, new media, service design and testing of new technologies.

Participants make commissioned work for businesses partners of the project. Concepts, products and branding are created and tested with the help of professionals and mentors from the ICT and digital media industries.

This case study was contributed from the Digital Skills Map: https://digiskillsmap.com/en

For further information about the case study, click here.

Sustainable Development Goals

City information

City

Helsinki, Finland

Size and population development

The city of Helsinki recorded a population of 658, 058 in 2017. The city covers a total area of 715.48km2 with a population density of 3,034 people per km2.

Population composition

The 2017 data shows that the population comprises 53.4% females and 46.6% males. Life expectancy for women is 81.7 years and men is 75.1 years. 72% of Helsinki’s residents are aged between 15-64, 14.3% are aged 65 or over and 13.7% of residents are children aged 0-14. The official languages of Helsinki are Finnish and Swedish, with the majority of the population, 81.9%, speaking Finnish, 5.9% speak Swedish and 12.2% other languages. Helsinki has the highest number of immigrants in Finland with 140 nationalities represented. The largest groups are from Sweden, Russia, Estonia, China, Somalia, Kurdistan, Germany, Spain Vietnam and Turkey. Source: world population review

Main functions

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland and the centre for politics, education, finance, culture and research. The city is situated in the far south of Finland, on a peninsula that is surrounded by natural harbours and protrudes into the Gulf of Finland. Helsinki consistently ranks in the top 10 most liveable cities in the world.

Main industries / business

Greater Helsinki generates one third of Finland’s GDP. The main industries are service related IT, public sector, heavy industrial works including metal and chemical processing and shipping.

Sources for city budget

The City of Helsinki draws its budget for public expenditure largely from property tax, fees, fines, operating revenues and subsidies from national government of Finland.

Political structure

Helsinki’s city council is the main decision-making body for the city, dealing with issues such as urban planning, schools, health care, and public transport. The council is elected in the nationally-held municipal elections, which are held every four years. Helsinki's city council consists of eighty-five members.

Website

https://www.hel.fi/helsinki/en

Background and objectives

Digitalents Helsinki is a joint venture with local businesses developed by the City of Helsinki. The project is located at the Maria01 startup-campus and brings together aspiring youth, established professionals, businesses and educational organisations; the common denominator being a digital frame of thinking and creative drive.

The background for Digitalents Helsinki is based on the San Francisco model, when research projects of Stanford and Berkley universities together with garage companies created the greatest developments the digital industry has seen. The basis of companies such as Google, Apple and Intel were created at this time.

The aim of the project is to provide young people the required skills to obtain employment with the participating companies or in the open job market.

Implementation

Recognizing the value of youth involvement in the development and creation of digital platforms and creative environments is key to the project. The focus group are people between the ages of 18 and 29.

An intensive academy period (3 months) teaching tools and methods, followed by real customer projects deepening the learnings in practice. Motivating and orientating participants to growth mindset, productive teamwork, and independent problem-solving.

Digitalents Helsinki consists of 3 teams:

The SoftDev team works on challenging software development in cooperation with participating businesses.
The ICT team is responsible for our internal IT infrastructure and also offers ICT services to clients.
The Ad Agency creates media content and multi-platform media production and offers various

Digitalents Helsinki also organizes events, where young people can establish a professional network and learn from experienced professionals. Digitalents Helsinki maintains a continuous dialog with ICT companies to keep up to date in this fast-changing industry.

Financing and resources

The Lead agency for the project is the City of Helsinki who provide both resources and financing. The project is administered jointly by the Economic Development, Culture and Leisure and Educations divisions of the city council. Additional government support is provided by the Public Employment and Business Services, Ministry of Economic Affairs an Employment of Finland. The City works collaboratively with local ICT and media companies.

Results and impacts

100+ young people have completed the program with a success rate of 65%, either employed or moved on to further education.

Barriers and challenges

The project is currently passing the proof-of-concept phase and looking for permanent resources for establishing the operation.

References

Digital Skills Map website: https://digiskillsmap.com/en/projects/5cff8e4b17443d0057dddfb3

Digitalents website: http://digitalents.munstadi.fi/fi/