TICKETSSpeakersProgram 
OCT 28–29 | HELSINKI |

health_
design_
2025_

Join live with leading experts and innovators

Innovation Across
Boundaries and Limits

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Partner and co-create the future with leading Hospitals, Companies and Research Organisations across Nordics, Baltics and the wider European ecosystem around real Healthcare Needs.

Explore and learn with how AI and adoption of new technology changes Healthcare and the Medical Profession

Experience latest in health technology and service innovation at our Expo and Startup pitching competition up to 200K€ Angel Track and VC Track

#RDI #ServiceDesign and #Funding for
#MedTech, #DigitalHealth and #Pharma

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See the full list of partners, sponsors and suppporters

Learn about:

Partnership and Co-Innovation opportunities
Technology  and Service Innovation
Venture Building and Growth thorugh RDI
IP, Patenting and Regulatory Strategy

Clinical topics:

Women's Health, Aging population, Pediatric Innovation and Mental Health

#Digitalization #Platforms #Mentalhealth

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Venture Building and Growth thorugh RDI

Learn how we can design physical and virtual surroundings that support our wellbeing
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Learn how tomorrows healthcare can be both physical and virtual as well
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#VR #XR #PhysicalReality # Architecture

IP, Patenting and Regulatory Strategy

How to design interactions between patients and healthcare professionals.

How to enable wellbeing at home.

#UX #UI #Applications #HomeCare

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first_speakers_

Virpi Roto

Virpi Roto is working as a professor of practice in experience design at Aalto University, Department of Design. She is the most cited user experience researcher in Finland. She is the Chair of Aalto Experience Platform, which facilitates multidisciplinary collaboration in experience research.

Jere Finne

Jere Finne is a Service Manager in Service Center Helsinki. Through technology they can offer their customers a chance to live a good and sociable life in the safety of their home. By utilizing cutting-edge technology, vast liaison network and firm knowledge on healthcare service design they have been able to develop a concept that is internationally renowned. At this year’s Helsinki Design Week they launched this concept as a new ’At Home Concept’, which is a continuum for previous development.​

Nina Karisalmi

Before graduating as M.Sc.(Tech) Nina worked as a pediatric nurse in the Childrens's hospital. Now she is doing her Phd in the usability group at Aalto University. Karisalmi has been involved with the Lapsus research project for three years, studying the patient experience of children.

Saara Hassinen / Chair

Saara Hassinen is the CEO of the Healthtech Finland representing about 200 companies operating in Finland. Health technology is one of the fastest growing high-tech export sectors in Finland.

A favourable operating environment envisages the R&D and production of patient-safe, effective and innovative solutions for both Finland and the world.

Erki Mölder

As Managing Partner at Verge HealthTech Fund, Erki Mölder supports founders in building transformative HealthTech companies. With over two decades of experience in healthcare investment and entrepreneurship, he is dedicated to enhancing the accessibility of quality healthcare.

He co-founded Health Founders to mentor ambitious HealthTech innovators and serves on the Supervisory Board at a leading Latvian hospital, where he advises on strategy and innovation.

Taneli Raivio / Chair

Professor Taneli Raivio serves as the Acting Director of Research and Research Innovations at the Helsinki University Hospital (HUS), and oversees a unit dedicated to advancing clinical and translational research, fostering scientific innovation, and promoting education within the healthcare system in close collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.

He obtained his MD and PhD degrees from the University of Helsinki, and did his international postdoctoral fellowship at the Reproductive Endocrine Sciences Center at Harvard Medical School, MA. As a specialist in pediatrics and pediatric endocrinology, he also holds the Niilo Hallman Professorship in Translational Pediatrics at the University of Helsinki.

Samuel Kaski

Samuel Kaski is a professor at Aalto University and the University of Manchester. He is the founding director of the ELLIS Institute Finland, Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence FCAI, and Manchester Centre for AI Fundamentals. His field is probabilistic machine learning, and he is currently interested in automatic experimental design for research, and collaborative AI able to work well with experts in modelling, design and decision tasks.

Application domains include health, medicine, biology, chemistry, brain signalanalysis. Prof. Kaski is an ELLIS Fellow and received the UKRI Turing AI World-Leading Researcher Fellowship in 2021 and ERC Advanced Grantin 2025.

Johanna  Furuhjelm

Is a Director of Karolinska Institutet Centre for AI Innovation and Coordinator of TEF-Health node Sweden

Center for AI Innovation, an initiative aimed at promoting the development and use of artificial intelligence in medical research and healthcare. The center will serve as a collaborative platform for local, regional, national, and international collaborations in AI at Karolinska Institutet.

Sampo Sammalisto

is a Senior Advisor at Business Finland, where his main task Is to help Finnish companies and researcher acquire EU funding and network for their RDI activities.

He is the National Contact Point (NCP) for Horizon Europe Cluster 1 (Health) and the State Representative of Finland for Innovative Health Initiative (IHI). Sampo has more than 20 years experience in biotech and in vitro diagnostics industries from both public and private sectors. He holds a Ph.D. in medical genetics from the University of Helsinki.

Johan Sanmark

is a medical doctor and an experienced healthcare developer and leader. He is the  Country Director for Tandem Health in Finland.

Tandem Health is one of Europe’s leading healthcare AI companies, whose AI assistant supports healthcare professionals by automating their admin workload.

Previously, Sanmark led the research, development and innovation activities of the Western Uusimaa Wellbeing Services County.

Sys Zoffman Glud / Chair

Sys Zoffmann Glud is managing director of BioMedical Design Novo Nordisk Foundation Fellowship Programme. Her work is focused on empowering and training talented professionals to create need-driven health innovations as well as developing interdisciplinary collaborations to address health challenges.

She is an academic researcher with a PhD in Nano/Molecular Biology from Aarhus University
(2009), an author/co-author of a dozen scientific research publications and book chapters. She’s appointed member of Assessment Committee for Innovation Fund Denmark and act as Entrepreneurship ambassador for Department of Clinical Medicine.
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Lasse Leppäkorpi

Is an Operations Executive leading CardioSignal’s commercial operations.
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25+ years of international experience in health technology, with deep expertise in biomedical engineering. As the co-founder and former CEO of Beddit he pioneerd non-invasive sleep monitoring using ballistocardiography. Beddit was acquired by Apple in 2017.

During this time he Apple launched key health features including ECG-based AFib detection on Apple Watch and Beddit 3.5, later integrated into Apple Sleep.

He is also an advisor, board member, and investor in multiple health tech startups. Served also as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Maki.vc fund.

Arno Solin / Chair

is an Associate Professor (with tenure) in Machine Learning and Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the Department of Computer Science at Aalto University, Finland. He is also an ELLIS Scholar and Docent at Tampere University, serves as a member of the Young Academy Finland, and is the coordinating professor of the ‘Next-generation Data-efficient Deep Learning’ program of the Finnish Center of Artificial Intelligence (FCAI).

His research interests are in data-efficient machine learning, with a special interest in probabilistic methods for real-time inference and sensor fusion.

Heikki Pitkänen

Heikki Pitkänen, CEO of Lean Entries, provider of regtech e-tools.

Entries is a regtech platform providing explanation, education and instant actionable knowledge on the MDR, IVDR and soon on the AI Act, Data Act and the EHDS regulation.

Leena Soininen

Leena Soininen is Chief Medical Officer in DigiFinland Oy, which develops, maintains and provides national digital services that improve the productivity and effectiveness of healthcare and other related services.

At the moment, her main focus is to promote patient-centric and effective digital- and AI-related innovations in healthcare.

She obtained her MD and PhD degrees in Helsinki University. She has a long clinical background in intensive care, a highly tech-loaded specialty. She is a board member of Healthtech Finland.

Pasi Heiskanen

Pasi is the Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder of Noona Healthcare. He is an digital heath professional with passion for building solutions that work in practice. Pasi combines his health industry and cancer care expertise with deep knowledge in utilizing IT and digitalization to yield value. Ramping up Noona service and Noona Healthcare as a company is his latest mile stone in this path. Pasi’s mission is to build sustainable solutions for cancer hospitals in providing better care to their patients.

Johanna Kaipio

Johanna Kaipio, D.Sc.(Tech.), is working as a research fellow at Aalto University, Department of Computer Science. Johanna has a strong background in user-centered design and usability evaluation. Her areas of research include usability of healthcare information systems, integrating usability into procurement of IT systems for healthcare and social care, and patient experience.

Anna-Maria Henell

is the CEO and Co-Founder of Disior, where she drives innovation and co-creation with Clinicians and Medical Researchers. Founded in 2016, Disior develops a novel way to analyze and model bone fractures and soft tissue for diagnostics, pre-operative planning and treatment optimization. The company brings together clinical needs and product development experience from orthopedics, maxillofacial surgery and latest modelling technology.

Milvi Soosalu

Milvi Soosalu (M.A.) is industrial designer working as Senior User Experience Designer at GE Healthcare. She designs graphical user interfaces and UX for patient monitoring devices.  She also works on product usability evaluation and validation.  Helsinki is one of GE Healthcare’s leading centers of excellence for Monitoring Solutions R&D and marketing. In Finland there are approx. 1,100 employees in 6 sites, 2 manufacturing plants, 2 R&D Centers of Excellence and over 110 years of history.

Full program with more speakers >

venues_

University of Helsinki main building: Great Hall


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Day 2: Dipoli serves as the main building of Aalto University. It is a new type of multi-use building which reflects the skills and knowledge, activities, and people of the University.

Dipoli pictures: Northbay

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Picture: Unlocking the Scalability of Innovation in 2024: Workshop organized by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and Biodesign Finland, representatives from wellbeing services counties, businesses, and other stakeholders had a chance to discuss the types of additional expertise and support needed to drive processes aimed at producing innovations that are scalable both nationally and internationally.


New workshops for Health Design 2025 TBA

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OPENING DAY 28th OF OCTOBER | University of Helsinki, Fabianinkatu 33 (Day 2 at Aalto University)
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10:15 OPENING REMARKS
10:30 BUILDING A PATH TO BETTER HEALTHCARE AND BUSINESS GROWTH THROUGH RDI

Saara Hassinen, CEO at Healthtech Finland (Chair)
‍Päivi Sillanaukee, Special Envoy at Ministry of Social Affairs and Health Finland (Chair)
‍Risto Renkonen, Director of Innovation at Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki
‍Samuel Kaski, Prof. Aalto University, Univ. of Manchester, Founding director of the ELLIS Institute Finland
‍Antti Vasara, Venture Partner at Kvanted, Special Envoy for Technology for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs
‍Josefine Persson, Analyst at HealthCap (Tentative)

12:45 – FUNDING, PARTNERSHIPS & CO-INNOVATION                    

Sampo Sammalisto & Outi Tuovila, Business Finland                

‍13:15 – WELLBEING SERVICES CO-CREATION WORKSHOPS      
 
Birgitta Tetri, Salla Keränen, Annika Järvelin, Ghita Khalife and Pauliina Hyrkäs (Chairs)
‍/ Future Roles in Social & Healthcare & AI  /  Technologies for Wellbeing and Brain Health /
Patient Journeys & Cost Effectiveness  / Growth Paths, Public-Private Perspective

12:45 STARTUP CLINIC WITH AI & EHDS IN MIND (Parallel session)
 Heikki Pitkänen, Lean Entries (Regulations)

13:15 STARTUP PITCHING SEMI-FINALS
Angel and VC tracks for Digital Health, MedTech and Pharma up to 200K€
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15:30 – INNOVATION ACROSS BOUNDARIES & LIMITS
Taneli Raivio, Researh Director at Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) (Chair)
‍Leena Soininen, Chief Medical Officer at DigiFinland
Johanna Furuhjelm, Director of Karolinska Institutet Centre for AI Innovation, Coordinator TEF-Health SWE
Sys Zoffman Glud, Managing Director of BioMedical Design Novo Nordisk
Erki Mölder, Health Founders and Verge HealthTech Fund

18:00 – NETWORKING EVENT ‍

OCT 29|Aalto University, Otakaari 24

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‍8:00 Doors open.

8:30 Expo opens at Dipoli

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09:00 – AI AND THE FUTURE OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

Arno Solin, Assoc. Prof. in Machine Learning at Aalto University / Chair

Johan Sanmark, Country Director Finland at Tandem Health

Elli Valla, TalTech (Tentative)

Jarmo Pulkkinen, AI Project lead at Keusote Wellbeing Services County

Shinya Yamamoto, Prof., Serial Entrepreneur and Investor at Link & Innovation and Osaka University

Petja Orre, Director, Primary Care at Mehiläinen. Specialist in Public Health Medicine

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11:00 – INCREASING ADOPTION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES & SERVICES THROUGH BETTER USABILITY & DESIGN

Keita Augstkalne, Community Manager at Health Founders (Tentative Chair)

Vili Kostamo, CEO at MedicubeX

Ilze Kundziņa, Service Design Strategies and Innovations (SDSI)

Lasse Leppäkorpi, Operations Excecutive CardioSignal, prev. Beddit & Apple Health

Teemu Suna, CEO at Nightingale Health

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13:30 – REVERSE PITCHING

Tesi, Athensmed, Innovestor, Nordic Science Investments, HealthCap, Maki VC, Kaikarhenni

14:00 – PITCHING FINALS FOR MEDTECH, DIGITAL HEALTH AND PHARMA (€100K–200K)

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15:00 – CONCLUDING SESSION: SECURING THE FUTURE OF HEALTH THROUGH COLLABORATION

Otto Olavinen, Main Organiser of Health Design and CEO at Northbay (Chair)

Ellen McMahon, Preparedness and Medical devices expert at National Emergency Supply Agency

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16:00 PITCHING WINNERS ANNOUNCED AND AWARD PARTY

18:00 EVENT CONCLUDES

previous_partners_

Interested in Partnerships? Learn more!

Main Partners:

Key Partners, Sponsors and Program Partners

Supporters, Exhibitors & Community:

Main Partners:

Instrumentarium
Science Foundation

Supporters, Investors & Community:

first_partners_

Interested in Partnerships? Learn more!

Main Partners:

Key Partners, Sponsors and Program Partners

Supporters, Exhibitors & Community:

Main Partners:

Instrumentarium
Science Foundation

Supporters, Investors & Community:

Want to learn about partnerships with Health Design?

Fill the form or send email directly at otto.olavinen@northbay.fi or call +358 40 763 7918

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Join ticket waiting list for early bird discount (sales open in 15th of July)

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29.11.2017  

08.00-9.30. Registration and coffee  
09.30. Welcome to Health Design 2017: Otto Olavinen & Risto Ilmoniemi  

09.40. Designing health technology for patients and customers. Saara Hassinen, Jyrki Nieminen, Sami Niemelä

10.45-11.00 Coffeebreak in Expo space  

11.00. Design that addresses global health needs. Prashant Jha, Zeynep Falay von Flittner

12.00-13.00 Lunch break + Networking  

13.00. Hospital spaces that improve patient life. Pekka Lahdenne, Sakari Forsman

14.00. Coffee break in Expo space  

14.15 Service design and digital health services. Visa Honkanen, Emil Virkki.

15.15 Coffee break in Expo space  

15.30 Markku Mäkijärvi Instrumetarium Science Foundation & Finals of the competition  

16.15 Anne Pitkäranta: Design for the Caretakers (Health and aesthetics)  

16.45 Expo + Cocktails and networking
17.30 Health Design Award Gala + prices for 1-3rd place winners.

20.00 Closing doors

Pitching competition for research teams for innovative healthcare design.    

Semifinals on the 28th of November. Finals on the 29th of November at Health Design 2017
 
Prizes: 50 000  € for implementing the  solution

Even if the team doesn’t win, they have a chance to get valuable feedback from the Health Design jury. Teams also have an opportunity to form new partnerships.

Competition partner: Instrumentariumin Tiedesäätiö sr

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Towards the Future Workshop will be held after the conference. More details to be announced
Host: THL / STM Well-Being and Health AIRO project

2025_competition_

Need & research based pitching competition for innovative #Medtech, #Healthtech, #DigitalHealth and #Pharma solutions

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
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Thank you! Your submission has been received!
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Welcome to the Health Design 2025 pitching competition: Health_Spin_

Do you want to improve and impact human well-being? Do you have a novel health product/service that has a strong clinical and market need?

Investor lead partner: FIBAN

Want to join in as investor contact: otto.olavinen@northbay.fi / +358 40 763 7918
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Apply by 10th of October. The competition is held live at Aalto University Finland on 28th and 29th of October.

Health Design Pitching Competition is open for  Nordic / Baltic startups and university spinouts establishing their companies.

The language of the competition is English. Participants will be pre-selected by a Health Design Jury based on their applications.

Our emphasis is on innovations that address real needs for patinets and clinicians while providing solutions that can scale globally.Wheather you are a spinout from a univiversity of a startup started from a garage you are welcome as long as you provide a solution that creates a real and measurable impact that can also generate a profit for your company and investors.

Previous winners:
2024: Kiwecare (100K€ Angel syndicate winner), Otos (VC track winner), Polku Therapheutics (VC track winner)

2017–2019: Glucomodicum 30K, Afekta 15K, Maculaser 5K, Brain Care 20K, Advaneedle 15K, Resistomap 5K

This year the winners will get investment discussions with Nordic / Baltic Angels and VC's.

For Angels interested to join the pitching syndicate tickets are typically in the range of 20K€-10K€
Inquiries: otto.olavinen@northbay.fi +358 40 7637918

Use the code contestant to get 30% of all normal and late bird tickets: inlcuding attendee and startup exhibitor ticket (inc 2 tickets):
https://holvi.com/shop/healthdesign/

Apply Here:
start.hopohopo.io/apply/
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Criteria

Need: What is the problem? Who needs your solution? What is the outcome they need vs their current state?
Approach: What is your solution and what is the impact you hope to achieve in the future?
Benefits: What are the outcomes and benefits you offer
Competition: Who are your competitors, how does your solution compare?

Team: Why are your team and your working environment uniquely qualified to make all this happen?

partners_

Organisers:

Northbay is a company that builds ideas. A Creative agency that Directs, Designs and Develops. By specializing on research and technology intensive clients, we look to make an impact in a local and global landscape.

Healthtech Finland is is an industry association and part of Technology Industries of Finland. Healthtech Finland is also a community: we foster our industry’s growth and collective knowledge.

Aalto University is a multidisciplinary community where science and art meet technology and business. We are committed to identifying and solving grand societal challenges and building an innovative future.

HUS - The Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa - is a Joint Authority formed by 24 municipalities. The aim is to offer patients in all member municipalities a timely and equal access to specialized medical care.

All rights reserved by Northbay