Pöyry PLC Press Release 26 April, 2018 at 16:30 EEST

This spring, Pöyry has engaged some of the brightest young minds in Finland to develop new ideas and solutions that would address the impacts and opportunities of global megatrends to businesses and industries. As part of Pöyry's co-operation with universities, these target oriented and business-driven initiatives were kicked off with Aalto University in Finland.

Pöyry Challenges was a 2-credit course jointly developed with Aalto University and targeted across disciplines. Divided into four teams, altogether 21 students in Chemical Engineering, Arts and Business Economics were challenged to innovate viable and scalable solutions for the food and beverage industry that would address for example sustainability, plastics substitution, circular economy and digitalisation. 'Team SoluPack' was announced the winner with their edible food packaging which would solute in boiling water when cooking the on-the-go meal.

'Team SoluPack': (from left to right) Perttu Saarela, Yanan Li, Topias Kilpinen and Luisa Jannuzzi Fonseca

'The edible food packaging is a creative and interesting idea which would make a huge difference to decreasing packaging waste. Especially we appreciated the business viability and scalability of the solution but also the novelty aspect was interesting,' said Tom Lind, VP, Technology and New Solutions at Pöyry's Industry Business Group.

The Pöyry team was very impressed by all the solutions and delighted to discover how students tackled the challenges with energy and out-of-the-box thinking.

The megatrend competition, on the other hand, invited students to think more generally on the business opportunities created by the global megatrends. The winner of the open competition is Esko Hakanen with his idea on creating unique identity for material pieces and using it to connect the pieces to IoT, allowing companies to optimise production processes, improve product quality and manage product lifecycles. As a recognition for his winning idea, Hakanen will get to work as 'CEO for a day', shadowing Martin à Porta, CEO of Pöyry PLC.

Esko Hakanen

'IoT explosion will increase the number of connected devices to 100 billion by 2050 and social media will continue to redefine our lives. The winning idea is an interesting application of how companies can create value from intelligent, connected devices and take advantage of the opportunities that the global megatrends trigger,' said Martin à Porta.

Other finalists in the megatrend competition were Ville Alasalmi (combining IoT and GIS for creating built environments with memory), Neea Nieminen (utilising body heat for charging connected devices), Hong Van Trinh (Real Option Analysis for investment valuation) and Ora Visuri (water resource efficiency in industrial processes). Finalists' submissions are available on Pöyry's YouTube channel.

'Both these initiatives demonstrate the need to bring young talents closer to companies to solve real challenges faced by businesses. We have developed our co-operation with universities systematically to be more target oriented, allowing us to focus resources to where they add most value for both parties. A special thank you goes to our young engineers and consultants who actively, enthusiastically and with a positive attitude work with universities, helping to drive high-quality, business driven courses and other forms of co-operation,' said Mikko Hyytinen who heads Pöyry's university co-operation in Finland.

Feedback from the students also showcases their appreciation on working on real-life challenges and having the possibility for dialogue with the company. Quotes form the Pöyry Challenges course feedback include, for example:

'Working together in multidisciplinary teams with a nice atmosphere to analyze how to contribute to create a better future.'

'It was a good experience to think of solutions to problems around us, and some that might not be so visible.'

More information:

Juuso Pajunen
CFO, Pöyry PLC
juuso.pajunen@poyry.com
Tel. +358 40 584 9722

Tom Lind
VP, technologies and new solutions
Industry Business Group
tom.lind@poyry.com
Tel. +358 40 554 0165

Mikko Hyytinen
Director, digitalization
mikko.hyytinen@poyry.com
Tel. +358 40 589 6842

Did you know? Pöyry employs some of the most creative minds in our sectors across 40 countries, from a butterfly researcher to nuclear physicist and everything in between.

About Pöyry

Pöyry is an international consulting and engineering company. We serve clients across power generation, transmission & distribution, forest industry, biorefining & chemicals, mining & metals, infrastructure and water & environment. Together, we deliver smart solutions and work with the latest digital innovations. Pöyry's net sales in 2017 were EUR 522 million. The company's shares are quoted on Nasdaq Helsinki. Approximately 5500 experts. 40 countries. 115 offices.

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Pöyry Oyj published this content on 26 April 2018 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 26 April 2018 13:53:04 UTC