Cooperation between industry and emerging technology companies is being strengthened in Tampere. One possible operating model is the arrival of the international Plug and Play Tech Center in Tampere, as the first location in Finland. Cooperation between industry and emerging technology companies is being strengthened in Tampere. One possible operating model is the arrival of the international Plug and Play Tech Center in Tampere, as the first location in Finland. Startup Innovation Day Tampere brought together a group of emerging technology companies (startups), large industrial companies and a global innovation network to pilot the creation of collaboration projects. The goal in Tampere is to identify concrete new openings and cooperation models between large companies and growth companies. Teppo Rantanen, Executive Director of Growth, Innovation and Competitiveness at the City of Tampere, opened the event by emphasizing that international platforms and networks are essential for the creation and utilisation of new, radical innovations. According to him, renewing operating models to enable cooperation between large companies and emerging technology firms is also needed, and it is not always easy. However, new innovations need to be adopted more quickly. This strengthens the growth of Finland’s business sector. Heini Wallander, Industry Lead at Business Tampere, complemented the perspective by reminding of the numerical benefits of startup cooperation: how data from one thousand completed collaborations shows an average business impact of +700,000 euros. “Not bad,” Heini Wallander said. Platform6 brought together startups and industrial companies to advance collaboration. Photo: Pertti Aimonen, Business Tampere. Plug and Play Tech Center organised a pilot event in cooperation with the City of Tampere, Business Tampere and the Tampere Chamber of Commerce at the Platform6 building. No decision on Plug and Play cooperation has yet been made. Dropbox and PayPal as examples Plug and Play is one of the world’s largest innovation actors and business accelerators, known for its early-investor roles in companies such as Dropbox, PayPal and N26. The company builds Innovation Hub concepts where industrial companies can rapidly pilot solutions and startups gain access to global networks. In Tampere, this type of activity would mean an entirely new level of opportunity to build collaboration around industrial AI, automation and manufacturing technologies together with international partners. At the Startup Innovation Day event, several international frontrunners in industrial AI presented their solutions in response to a challenge defined by industrial companies in the Tampere region. The German company context/fab has developed an AI-based system for optimising industrial processes. CEO Marc Krüger-Sprengel presented the service at Platform6. The German company context/fab presented its solution, which combines OT and IT data from machine shops into real-time factory insights. Another German company, ai-omatic, showcased a solution that predicts machine condition and maintenance needs. From Finland, the Tampere-based company Spogen.ai demonstrated its AI agent that supports the maintenance, operation and technical assistance of mobile machinery by combining deep machine understanding with generative AI. AI teollisuus