Mikko Koria

Building with technology, management and innovation: challenges for Vanuatu

While small island developing states are seen to possess specific and exceptional characteristics, it is not known whether technology application or management practice in development projects in these states would necessarily be specific and exceptional in nature. This paper examines a school building project in the Republic of Vanuatu and reviews the technology and management aspects of project delivery. The paper concludes that there is evidence of specific attributes. In recognising the key role of management as an enabler of technology application, the paper proposes an update to existing project management practices, suitable to the development context. Including a knowledge perspective as an evolving method of control enables management to assume a wider developmental role and importance through the project management office structure, potentially enabling administrative innovation and co-evolution of the office and the host organisation. This wider role is made possible through the specific attributes of the small island developing state context.

FrontEnd toolkit : a toolkit to transform ideas into intelligent action

This FrontEnd Toolkit is about applying Design Thinking to transform new ideas into innovative products, services andbusinesses with an impact. The front end development of new user and customer-oriented solutions is a key opportunity aswell as a significant challenge for organizations and success is built on collaborative approaches. The overall objective is to help policy- makers, project owners, and managers as well as their stakeholders to design and implement projects with real impact. The Toolkit helps to establish an idea’s key value to stakeholders, and supports planning for the creation of high impact projects. It assists in defining complexity, cost, delivery, functionality,and future upgrade potential of a concept and creates new opportunities for partnerships. The Front End innovation is all about purposefully combining different skills, disciplines, and resources with knowledge related to the local innovation ecosystem to gain insights that inspire and help shape a new, valuable offering. The process of creating this constellation of elements involves understanding emerging opportunities,client and user mindsets, needs and expectations. It also involves making sense of the competitive environment, the social and individual constraints and enablers that drive the acceptance and up take of new products, services and business models.

Building Student Change Agent Capabilities: Case UniWASH in Uganda

In this chapter, we examine youth-led innovation in the context of a recent multi-stakeholder development project, in which university students from Uganda and Finland collaborated to generate solutions to water and sanitation problems faced by schoolchildren in Northern Uganda. We focus on the project’s impact on developing change agent capabilities among the participating students and discuss the practical implications for the design and facilitation of similar initiatives. With a view to contributing to the planning of similar initiatives in the future, we propose a framework depicting the approaches and principles applied in this project and their relevance toward the acquisition of individual capabilities and social competencies underpinning critical change agency and responsible leadership.

Why do I love you Vaatelainaamo? Analysis of motivations, barriers and opportunities in a Finnish service for sharing clothes

Abstract Services for sharing are the next challenge in Economy as they configure promising sustainable solutions. This paper presents research on a Finnish service for sharing clothes, aiming to understand factors that could increase the adoption of consumer practices in the Sharing Economy, especially for those products of mass consumption and consumer identity. The research has its foundation on the interpretative paradigm and on the phenomenological study, using questionnaires and “Love & Hate Letters” as research techniques. Among the results, we highlight motivations for both choosing and keeping use of the service, as well as factors that damage the relationship of users with it. Hence, we claim that services for sharing should promote a sense of belonging, which is the fundamental factor for users to love the service even though some aspects can be improved. Thus, designing for the next economy is to design for belonging.

Making an Interdisciplinary Difference: Twenty Years of Design, Business and Technology at Aalto

The International Design Business Management (IDBM) program is an interdisciplinary offering of Aalto University in the Helsinki area, Finland. Since 1995, it has delivered world-class multidisciplinary and systemic research and learning in global business development through design and technology. The aim is to educate global producers and leaders of innovation in new product, service and business development.