About Oulu
Located in the heart of Finland where the Oulujoki River meets the Bay of Bothnia, Oulu is the most populated city in Northern Finland. It is said to be one of Europe's "living labs" where the locals experiment with new technology on a community-wide basis - think along the lines of NFC (near field communication) tags and ubi-screens (turns any surface into a touch screen). This is where the Air Guitar World Championships are held and many writers, artists and musicians live. Coworking is flourishing in this city that sits near the Arctic Circle.
This is the city that has reinvented itself after its major industrial employer crashed with a dynamic startup hub of dozens of small companies filling Nokia's old offices. The city is awash in tech souls with about one third of its workforce involved and it is home to three 5G test networks. The US led the world in the 4G LTE that enabled widespread streaming media such as Instagram and Snapchat, but it is Oulu that is forging ahead with 5G. It is here that you will find Mediatek (2nd biggest maker of mobile-phone processors) and ARM (developers of basic software for practically every mobile processor in the world). All of these brainy and innovative minds like to hang out with likeminded souls in coworking/incubator spaces that have changed the traditional office scenario to that of independent working.
When Nokia downsized in the wake of its smartphone collapse, its engineers stayed in Oulu building startups and hiring their own people. There is a high level of public-private funding available allowing huge growth in the tech scene. Traditionally the people of Finland have been a bit averse to risk taking, but this has changed dramatically over the last years. With the advent of coworking spaces opening up, there is the perfect climate for creative thinkers to get busy. Oulu is set to make consumer connections faster and low-power machine-to-machine technologies with everything connected to everything.