Pitching, cash prizes and better services

Ministry of Social Affairs and Health

4.12.2017 15.03 | Published in English on 11.12.2017 at 10.28

News item

The Slush side event organised by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health on Thursday 30 November was a creative event with a lot of pitching.

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health had invited startup companies, application developers and health and wellbeing service providers to the event, where authorities presented what they have to offer for startups. They gave, for example, advice on how start-ups could contact providers of health and wellbeing services. In addition, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela) and the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) presented Kanta Personal Health Record, Kanta PHR.

The event culminated in the launch of a design competition for application developers. The competition seeks to find new kind of health and wellbeing applications to help in using the Kanta PHR. A total of EUR 500,000 has been reserved for the funding of the winner applications.

The purpose of the event was , among other things, to promote opportunities for startup companies in the Finnish health and wellbeing sector to succeed in international markets, and to accelerate cooperation between service providers and startups.

The goal is for the event to inspire the creation of new electronic health and wellbeing services. One objective of the ongoing health and social services reform is that electronic services will improve citizens’ health and social services and promote wellbeing.

The event was organised by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, THL, Kela, the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, HealthSpa and Kanta services.