Board Member in Spotlight pt. 8: Janne Parkkila

“Now is a good time to join us and influence our activities as we are still growing our membership base and finding our operating approaches.”

Benefits produced by the collective will serve public interest

I find it important that the Kuopio Health open innovation ecosystem activities make an actual impact on society and that our activities will ultimately benefit ordinary citizens. 

Our aim is to create interactions between organisations in the health tech sector, including both public and private operators. The collaboration will profit business while improving healthcare efficiency. The result is better health for patients and better value for tax payers’ money. This increases wellbeing.

Small companies play a big role

Orkestr.io is a microenterprise. We employ less than ten people. One of the reasons why I wanted to become involved in the Kuopio Health Board was to make sure that the perspective of small companies is considered. Large organisations may not be used to working with small enterprises, and I wish to promote this collaboration.

Above all, however, I want to emphasise the public interest. Large organisations must not dictate what the cooperative should do, but this should also not be left for the smaller enterprises to decide.

Each different size class comes with certain benefits. After all, a large vessel is bound to have a lot of resources, but navigating it might prove to be a much bigger task compared to a smaller one. By contrast, small companies tend to be agile and quick to adapt and may be driven to create something new at a fast pace. On the other hand, their resources tend to be so limited that they actually have to act fast. It all may fail if the company does not start making profits immediately.

I would also like to bear in mind that even big players start out small. We must have the right tools for developing new things. 

Not everyone needs to grow big. We also need companies with just a few employees and highly specialised competence in a specific field. Such companies can be a brilliant addition to Kuopio Health as a whole.

Cooperation requires trust

Kuopio Health provides its members with an opportunity to succeed together. In practice, this can mean shared efforts for exporting products or joint projects. I think cooperation is the most important of all Kuopio Health values. Together, our shoulders are much broader.

Cooperation requires trust. The current situation sets particular challenges for building deep trust. It often requires natural occurrences and encounters that happen face-to-face. 

We only established an office in Kuopio two years ago. During this time, we have aimed to get to know and create new relationships with different operators. Kuopio Health has been a great help in all this.

In fact, we currently have some cooperation projects. It remains to be seen which of them eventually gain momentum.

Membership also extends beyond health tech

I hope we will be able to attract new companies, particularly small members, to Kuopio Health. This will also produce great opportunities for collaboration for the smaller members.

The members are probably initially largely related to health tech. Once the collaborative’s activities have been progressed and we have obtained more concrete results, we are likely to also attract companies that are not as deeply involved in health tech. Their expertise lies in fields that can produce added value to health tech companies.

Now is a good time to join us and influence our activities as we are still growing our membership base and finding our operating approaches.

Read more board member presentations HERE.

Read more about the membership HERE.