Helsinki is the capital and most populous city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About 682,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.26 million in the capital region and 1.6 million in the metropolitan area. As the most populous urban area in Finland, it is the country's most significant centre for politics, education, finance, culture, and research. Helsinki is 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Tallinn, Estonia, 400 kilometres (250 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 300 kilometres (190 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. Helsinki has significant historical connections with these three cities.
Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, or simply Helsinki Airport, is the main international airport serving Helsinki, the capital of Finland, as well as its surrounding metropolitan area, and the Uusimaa region in Finland. The airport is located in the neighbouring city of Vantaa, about 5 kilometres (3 mi) west of Tikkurila, the administrative centre of Vantaa and 9.2 NM north of Helsinki's city centre. The airport is operated by state-owned Finavia. The facility covers a total of 1,800 hectares of land and contains three runways.
Lotta Svärd was a Finnish voluntary auxiliary paramilitary organisation for women. Formed originally in 1918, it had a large membership undertaking volunteer social work in the 1920s and 1930s. It was formed to support the White Guard. During the Second World War, it mobilized to replace men conscripted into the army. It served in hospitals, at air raid warning positions, and other auxiliary tasks in close cooperation with the army. The women were officially unarmed except for an antiaircraft battery in 1944. Virtanen argues that, their "accountability to the nation took a masculine and military form in public, but had a private, feminine side to it including features like caring, helping and loving." The organisation was disbanded by the government after the war.
Sir Geoffrey John Mulgan CBE is Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation at University College London (UCL). From 2011 to 2019 he was chief executive of the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) and visiting professor at University College London, the London School of Economics, and the University of Melbourne.
Jorma Jaakko Ollila is a Finnish businessman who was chairman of Royal Dutch Shell from 1 June 2006 to May 2015, and at Nokia Corporation chairman from 1999 to 2012 and CEO from 1992 to 2006. He has been a director of Otava Books and Magazines Group Ltd. since 1996 and UPM-Kymmene since 1997, and an advisory partner at Perella Weinberg Partners, a New York–based boutique investment bank founded by Joseph R. Perella and Peter Weinberg in 2006.
Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund, is an independent public foundation which operates directly under the supervision of the Finnish Parliament. Its endowment was valued at 771 million euros in 2017. Its duties are stated in legislation: the objective of the foundation is "to promote stable and balanced development in Finland, qualitative and quantitative economic growth and international competitiveness and cooperation", by means of supporting "projects that increase the efficiency of the economy, improve the level of education or research, or study future development scenarios". Sitra functions both as a think tank and as an investment company. Sitra was founded in 1967 as a part of the Bank of Finland, on the country's 50th anniversary. However, most of the value of its current endowment comes from a donation of Nokia stock from the Finnish Parliament in 1992.
Neste Oyj is an oil refining and marketing company located in Espoo, Finland. It produces, refines and markets oil products, provides engineering services, and licenses production technologies. Neste has operations in 14 countries.
Sari Maritta Baldauf is a Finnish businesswoman who is chairwoman of the board of directors of Nokia. She joined the board in 2018 and became vice chair in 2019, before she succeeded Risto Siilasmaa as chairwoman in 2020. Until 2005, she was head of Nokia's Networks Business Group.
Business Finland is a public organization under the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy. It was established on 1 January 2018, with the goal of attracting trade, tourism, and foreign investment, and providing funds for innovation to Finland. And as such, Business Finland is also involved in funding Finnish space researches, under the New Space Economy program, as well as startup companies, under Young Innovative Company funding program among other projects. The organization is made up of two entities: Innovation Business Finland and Business Finland Oy.
Aalto University is a public research university located in Espoo, Finland. It was established in 2010 as a merger of three major Finnish universities: the Helsinki University of Technology, the Helsinki School of Economics and the University of Art and Design Helsinki. The close collaboration between the scientific, business and arts communities is intended to foster multi-disciplinary education and research.
The climate of Finland is influenced most by its latitude: Finland is located between 60 and 70 N. Because of Finland's northern location, winter is the longest season. Only on the south coast and in the southwest is summer as long as winter. On average, winter lasts from early January to late February in the outermost islands in the archipelago and the warmest locations along the southwestern coast – notably in Hanko – and from early October to mid May in the most elevated locations, such as northwestern Lapland and the lowest valleys in northeastern Lapland. This means that southern portions of the country are snow-covered about three to four months of the year, and the northern for about seven months. The long winter causes about half of the annual 500 to 600 millimetres precipitation in the north to fall as snow. Precipitation in the south amounts to about 600 to 700 millimetres annually. Like that of the north, it occurs all through the year, though not so much of it is snow.
Suomi24 is a Finnish internet forum and entertainment news website. As of 2020, it was the largest internet forum in Finland.
Children of Bodom was a Finnish melodic death metal band from Espoo. Formed in 1993 as Inearthed, the final line-up of the group upon their split in 2019 consisted of frontman Alexi Laiho, drummer Jaska Raatikainen, bassist Henkka Seppälä, keyboardist Janne Wirman and rhythm guitarist Daniel Freyberg. The band released ten studio albums, three live albums, two EPs, two compilation albums and one DVD.
Roope Vilhelmi Riski is a Finnish professional footballer who plays as a forward for Veikkausliiga club Ilves.
Maria Lähteenmäki is a researcher of history, Jutikkala Professor at the University of Eastern Finland and Docent of Finnish and Scandinavian history at the University of Helsinki. She has produced many scientific monographs and textbooks and written a great number of articles.
Climate change has far reaching impacts on the natural environment and people of Finland. Finland was among the top five greenhouse gas emitters in 2001, on a per capita basis. Emissions increased to 58.8 million tonnes in 2016. Finland needs to triple its current cuts to emissions in order to be carbon neutral by 2035. Finland relies on coal and peat for its energy, but plans to phase out coal by 2029. Finland has a target of carbon neutrality by the year 2035 without carbon credits. The policies include nature conservation, more investments in trains, changes in taxation and more sustainable wood burning. After 2035 Finland will be carbon negative, meaning soaking more carbon than emitting.
The city of Helsinki and the neighbouring city of Vantaa have plans for a radical expansion of the Helsinki tram network within the 2020s and 2030s that would more than double the length of the network from 2021. If completed, the plans would both extend the current tram lines and build new light rail lines.
Junction is a hackathon organizer with headquarters Espoo, Finland. Started in 2015, Junction grew to be one of the largest organizers in Europe. In 2018 it expanded globally with a Junction event at Tsinghua University in China and cooperation with Chinese and South Korean universities bringing high performing students to attend the event in Helsinki.
Minna Palmroth is a professor in computational space physics at the University of Helsinki; her particular area of interest is magnetospheric physics and solar wind - magnetosphere interactions.
Tiden is a quarterly theoretical political journal published in Stockholm, Sweden, since 1908. It is organ of the Social Democratic Party. Its original subtitle was Tidskrift för socialistisk kritik och politik which is later changed to Socialdemokratisk idé- och debattidskrift.
