City of Riihimäki and the South Häme Employment Region are developing international innovation activities

City of Riihimäki has signed a cooperation agreement with the Finnish company Demola Global Ltd. The aim of the collaboration is to implement a program that creates a new model for innovation activities. The model brings together jobseekers and university students in international innovation teams that develop new product and service concepts.

Demola Global Ltd. is a Finnish company operating internationally. It uses co-creation methods to involve future experts and leaders in international development projects in collaboration with companies and start-ups.

First participants will be recruited in August and September

The program will launch in autumn 2025. The program's primary target groups are jobseekers or professionals at risk of unemployment, as well as university students looking for internships or thesis opportunities. Participants will be formed into teams based on their skill profiles and personal interests, combining Finns and foreigners. During the fall, the goal is to demonstrate the operating model to local companies by inviting them to spar with teams to accelerate development work.

In the first year, two program rounds will be implemented, with aim of engaging at least 100 professionals in total. Alongside new participants in the second round, teams from the first round will be supported in continuing their development. Demola Global will recruit participants for the first round in cooperation with the City of Riihimäki and the South Häme Employment Area in August and September 2025. The program will start in September-October 2025 and end in January 2026.

"We have identified the need to build new ways of connecting skilled professionals with companies. We are responding to this need by creating new innovation ideas and by supporting, in particular, highly educated experts with international backgrounds. We must be bold in trying new approaches. With the cooperation that is starting now, we will also strengthen the city's already strong innovation activities, entrepreneurship, and employment," says Juha Hiltunen, Integration Manager at the City of Riihimäki.

Demola Global produces the program at Veturitallit

The program will take place at Veturitallit, and the activities will be connected to a wider entity. Demola Global is responsible for the content of the program and the implementation of innovation projects, in cooperation with the City of Riihimäki and other stakeholders.

"Every day, we see the enormous untapped potential of skilled professionals currently without jobs. The Demola Future Expert Program offers them a concrete opportunity to show their abilities by solving real future challenges. Riihimäki's ambitious goal is to connect jobseekers and students to a broader whole, and it creates fertile ground for new, even unexpected innovations and business ideas," says Ville Kairamo, CEO of Demola Global.

Teemu Seppälä, Director of Technology and Innovation at the City of Riihimäki, sees great potential in the program to employ local students, experienced Finnish professionals, and foreign experts who face the greatest barriers to employment.

"Increasing technology-based entrepreneurship is at the core of Riihimäki’s activities. This program, which has already been tested elsewhere, meets our needs well," Seppälä states.