Innofinland invites businesses, organisations and private persons to create innovations
Innofinland promotes the development of novel inventions into commercial products and spurs to new business activities. Innofinland also provides opportunities for entrepreneurs, inventors, public administration, financiers, counselling organisations and associations in the field to network and collaborate. Innofinland emphasises the importance of innovative small and medium-sized companies, and draws special attention to Finnish regional characteristics.
Each year, Innofinland awards the highly valued national Innofinland Prizes of the President of the Republic, regional Innofinland Prizes as well as Innoint Prizes and Innoschool Prizes.
INNOFINLAND Prizes of the President of the Republic 2009
The national Innofinland Prizes of the President of the Republic 2009 were awarded for the 16th time on 15 December 2009, the National Innovation Day, in the premises of the National Board of Patents and Registration of Finland.
In harmony with the concurrent UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Innofinland, with its theme “Material and energy efficiency - a new opportunity”, brings into focus Finnish innovations which give us more effective products and services that save both raw materials and energy and, hopefully, mitigate global warming.
In the awarding ceremony, Director General Helena Säteri from the Ministry of the Environment gave a speech in which she pointed out that with the awareness of energy issues growing, the demand for innovations today exceeds the supply of new ideas. “New ideas and concepts are also embraced quicker than before,” she said.
In 2009, a total of 174 entries took part in Innofinland; Uusimaa, Satakunta, and Southern Ostrobothnia were the provinces with most entries.
Five equal national Innofinland Prizes and two honourable mentions were presented. The prize winners received an Innofinland statuette and an honorary diploma.
President of the Republic Tarja Halonen together with the Chairman of the Innofinland Jury, President of the NBPR Martti Enäjärvi and Director of Federation of Finnish Enterprises, Risto Suominen presented the national Innofinland Prizes 2009 to the following businesses:
- Axco-Motors Oy, Lappeenranta, Increased efficiency and reliability for motors and generators
- Jomet Oy, Forssa, Ecological and user-friendly packaging of office paper
- Lennol Oy, Jalasjärvi, Furniture paddings from recycled PET bottles
- MZYMES Oy Joensuu, Energy savings through enzymatic pre-treatment of wood chips before the refining step in thermomechanical pulp production
- Techila Technologies Oy, Tampere, Virtual supercomputer for energy-efficient computing
The honourable mentions went to:
- Emeca Oy, Köyliö, Novel type of pile joint and robot-based manufacturing method
- nGlass Oy, Nummela, New production concept for client-oriented glass processing
In addition to the national prizes, regional Innofinland Prizes were presented earlier this autumn.
