To ensure blockchain adoption and the use of blockchain for real-world value creation, we need to bring together creative problem solvers from diverse backgrounds. To get started fast, we partner with the existing blockchain, research and technology entrepreneurs' ecosystem in Finland. Academic rigor and the scientific method needs to be applied even in the most agile innovation process to make sure that all solutions are built on a steady, peer-reviewed foundation.
Together with Helsinki Blockchain Center and Blockchain Forum Finland we organize a monthly face-to-face innovation meetup in the premises of Helsinki XR Center (and ultimately in online spaces in the metaverse). In the meetup, we invite cross-sectoral participation to create solutions and teams that consist of researchers, entrepreneurs, students, educators, designers, artists and business professionals. In Fund9, we start welcoming proposals from this cross-sectoral network in Finland and we keep expanding this innovation collaboration for the rest of 2022.
The themes we will be initially focusing on are:
- Open Metaverse, Immersive Experiences and Play-to-Earn Gaming
- RealFi and Circular Economy: Blockchain Solutions to Real World Problems
- Self-Sovereign Identity for People and Machines in a Digital Society
We help the teams crystalize their solutions in virtual meetups. These solutions are then brought to Catalyst where eager Catalyst members can join the teams as co-proposers. We prudently facilitate this innovation and collaboration process, aiming to deliver 5-10 highly fundable proposals a year. The focus of this proposal is to bring the network together, to co-design the innovation process and to get ready for a full rollout in the autumn 2022.
To ensure quality of proposed ideas, our academic research partner LUT University, Finland can engage with the following activities:
- LUT researchers will train on academic rigor and the scientific method that needs to be applied in the innovation process.
- LUT researchers will speak of their research findings in the innovation meetups.
- LUT will promote Catalyst among the student community so that they become interested in blockchain based innovation.
The resulting Blockchain Innovation Hub will serve as a testbed for cross-sectoral solutions. Once the model is tried and tested we open source the design and materials for the cross-sectoral blockchain innovation framework to be replicable elsewhere.
The challenge is to make Cardano-based solutions address real societal and business needs, not only to generate revenue but to maximize their impact. Too often blockchain initiatives are blinded by their own technological awesomeness and the teams end up with technically great solutions looking for relevant problems. Needless to say, that approach ends up in failure.
Finland is a country of mere 5 million highly educated people. Trust, integrity, honesty, fairness, equal opportunity and sustainability are values this society is built on. This is a country of design thinkers and savvy service designers who have extensive knowledge of various issues in the world. It is also a country of deep-thinking engineers and analytical scientists who are able to deliver high impact solutions to those wicked problems. Since the home market is so small, and the awareness of world issues is so high, Finns are used to coming up with "born global" solutions.
To harness this power of highly educated and networked knowledge workers, and to create those impactful and relevant blockchain solutions, there needs to be a solid innovation process and a dedicated group of capable facilitators.
Since 2017 Blockchain Forum Finland (nonprofit) and Helsinki Blockchain Center (for-profit) have done the groundwork in Finland. Now we, the enthusiastic Catalyst members, step in to connect all this to the global Cardano network. Solutions you can expect from the Blockchain Innovation Hub Finland will be readier, more well-researched and more believable in the eyes of the end users and investors outside of Catalyst. Once proven, funded and tested in Catalyst, the best success stories will be scaled up quickly with the help of our network.
Blockchain Innovation Hub is all about creating impactful, cross-sectoral, Cardano-based solutions that meet real societal and business needs.
In a highly networked and innovative environment, focus is the most important success factor. The more players there are in the network, the more discussion is needed but the solutions need to build on existing research, business acumen and resources of the partnering organizations. To deliver on our promises and to reach our goals, we need relentless focus on execution, on bringing everything together.
Creative dissent is welcome and encouraged in an innovation process. It is possible, however, that the various players in the ecosystem have differing agendas. We need to be careful in selecting who do we work with and first focus on the strengths and resources of the existing ecosystem.
Although the innovation network itself is ripe with diversity, and our perspectives, know-how and backgrounds vary, the initiating core team still appears predominantly as a bunch white males. We need to grow the team with diversity and inclusion in mind. Otherwise we soon risk running out of constructive ideas and could inadvertently become too narrow-minded.
Finally, some ideas generated might not be possible to implement on Cardano immediately. Therefore we need to be open for cross-chain collaboration. If a solution is better implemented elsewhere, we should try it, and then bridge it over to Cardano at a later stage.