Kuopio Health Board blog: Rolls John
“No one can create great things alone, what we need is a team.”
Kuopio Health must create something brand new and unique
I represent the City of Kuopio on the Board. I’ve been involved for around six months at this point and I’ve already noticed that Kuopio Health aims to create well-being in the Kuopio region. Time will tell what the actual benefit that Kuopio Health brings to Kuopio will be in the future. This may be something huge if the innovation ecosystem succeeds in creating something that is truly new and unique. Meanwhile, as I don’t actually represent business or education and research institutes, I believe I can examine things from an outside perspective and bring insight that comes from outside the box. After all, that’s what Kuopio Health is all about – bringing people together and creating new ideas.
Making English the language of operation
We’ve been discussing the possibility to change the language of operation at Kuopio Health from Finnish to English. I think it’s a sensible idea from the perspective of international goal achievement. I don’t think changing the language of operation to English would create any problems for the ecosystem members. For example, everyone on the Board has great English skills. If and when our goal is to work in an international operating environment and attract clients from around the world, using English is crucial. It’s also a way to promote and facilitate international recruitment.
Universal benefits
Great things are going on in Kuopio Health. For example, Kuopio has first-rate brain and health research as well as research related to sleep and the well-being effects of sleep.
It’s easy to see that these are absolutely universal topics. When we can study these subjects locally and create significant innovations around them, we’ll be able to then export the innovations to the international arena.
Not alone but as a team
I find that the most important task of the innovation ecosystem is to create collaboration at the local level. No one can create great things alone; what we need is a team. We need a round table and must attract companies, research institutes and public-sector agents around it. Anyone whose goal is to promote health. We want to create a big team that can generate ideas, take action and exert influence. Thankfully, it is also easy for us to keep in touch these days. While meeting people in person remains important, we also don’t have to limit our activities to the local level. Perhaps the one positive thing that came out of the years of the coronavirus pandemic is that at least now we’re also equipped to meet one another fully online.