Behind the Scenes

On the afternoon of Thursday, June 15 all conference participants will have the opportunity to participate in Behind the Scenes tours, special tours held around the city and curated by IWF Finland. Please refer to the descriptions below – you will be able to make your tour preference during the registration process. All tours will depart from Pikku-Finlandia. They are scheduled to return to the Crowne Plaza by 5:00 pm.

Amos Rex: Helsinki's most eccentric art museum

Privately funded and known for its futuristic underground expansion built by JKMM Architects, Amos Rex has been described as a place where past, present, and future meet. Located in central Helsinki, it consists of two parts: the newly designed, subterranean museum and the carefully renovated 1930s Lasipalatsi (Glass Palace) above it. Amos Rex presents experiential and technologically experimental exhibitions by both contemporary artists and their modernist predecessors, with a permanent exhibition of Sigurd Frosterus’s post-impressionist art collection. Its architecture is unique, with domes forming an undulating landscape to delight visitors.

The tour will be hosted by IWF Finland member Päivi Meuronen, renowned Finnish interior architect, partner of JKMM Architects, and the designer behind the interior architecture of Amos Rex Museum. This behind the scenes will end with a visit to the store of the Finnish textile designer Johanna Gullichsen, which is located at Lasipalatsi.

Please note this tour will depart Pikku-Finlandia by foot (10 minute walk to the museum and 14 minute walk to return to the hotel)

Exclusive tour of Finland’s Parliament House: An up-close look at women and politics in Finland

Finland is a frontrunner among democratic nations: Finnish women got the unrestricted right to vote and the right to stand for election under the 1906 Parliament Act, becoming the first country in Europe and the third country in the world to grant women the right to vote. In the current parliament, the share of female representatives is 47%. During the Parliament House visit, you will meet one of them.

This rare opportunity to tour Finland’s Parliament House, known as Eduskunta, will be hosted exclusively by Sari Multala, a Finnish Olympic sailor, politician, and member of the parliament of Finland. She will give you a broad understanding of the role of Finnish women in politics. During a guided  tour around the Parliament House and the parliament’s library, you will explore the parliament building and learn about the parliament itself. 

Finland has a unicameral parliament based on its constitution, which decrees that sovereignty belongs to the people and that power is vested in the parliament. Finland’s form of government is a parliamentary representative democracy, heavily influenced by women voters and elected leaders.

Please note this tour will depart Pikku-Finlandia by foot (10 minute walk to Parliament and 14 minute walk to return to the hotel)

Fazer: A century of food innovation 

Founded by Karl Fazer in 1891, a fearlessly creative visionary and innovator of his time, Fazer Foodtech now operates in eight countries and exports to around forty countries, still driven by a fearless courage to innovate, challenge norms, disrupt standards, and create novel products and technologies. Today Fazer is a leading Nordic food company, bringing its founder’s mission—to make food with a purpose—to life every day by creating food that encourages people to eat sustainable plant-based products that include bakery, confectionary, and non-dairy items, innovatively adding new ingredients—oats play a star role—to their recipes and inspiring people to eat healthy food, including treats that add joy to their lives. Fazer Foodtech is excited to show you what they have been working on. Their head of R&D, Dr. Jussi Loponen, will take us through the transformation from sweets and bread innovation to brain food, the world’s first xylitol made from oats, and much more. We will also visit the Fazer visiting center where we can immerse ourselves in their century-long history and sample some of Fazer’s iconic products that will delight your tastebuds.

Fiskars: Pioneering design that has embraced sustainability since 1649

Fiskars Group, a global home of design-driven brands for indoor and outdoor living, embraces the power of premium design in everything they do, from ideation to manufacturing and business development. Through its combination of craftsmanship, brand passion, and digital transformation, the company rethinks existing solutions while always staying loyal to their roots. 

For nearly four centuries, Fiskars has been driving innovation and sustainable growth to challenge throwaway culture through products of timeless, purposeful, and functional beauty, while pioneering design to make the everyday extraordinary.

Fiskars is one of the most famous Finnish brands in the world today, best-known for its iconic, orange-handled scissors. You can visit the new headquarter of one of Finland’s oldest companies, be inspired by their pioneering designs, and hear about their sustainability work. You will also have the opportunity to see the design exhibition showing some of their most famous designs.

Hybrid CoE: Take a deep dive into hybrid threats and responses

The European Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Countering Hybrid Threats is a self-governing, network-based, international organization based in Helsinki. The centre’s vision is to maintain a world in which our open, democratic societies operate free of hostile outside interference, while its primary function is to build its participating states’ capabilities to prevent and counter hybrid threats. This tour will give you an understanding of what hybrid threats are and the range of responses to them, as you listen to experts share their insights on recent research. 
 
The centre is the only organization of its kind that works with both the European Union and NATO, conducting joint exercises and covering a wide range of issues, from civil to military and from hostile influencing to hybrid threats. The tour will cover topics such as deterrence, resilience, hybrid warfare, critical infrastructure, and cybersecurity. During this conversation, you will have an opportunity to ask questions to better understand how this centre impacts our societies, businesses, and international politics and trade. In this joint venture, more than 1,500 practitioners and experts work within the participating states, the EU and NATO, the private sector, and academia to carry out its mission and achieve their shared goals.

ICEYE: Spaceborne technologies for monitoring our changing world

What does it mean to be a microsatellite manufacturer, specifically the new global space leader in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging technology based on small satellites? In this exclusive, behind-the-scenes visit, you will visit the ICEYE HQ and its lab on the Aalto University campus in Espoo. In 2019, the founders of ICEYE and the Aalto staff involved were awarded the Finnish Engineering Award, an achievement that was hailed as "a breakthrough in Finnish space technology." And in August 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it signed a contract that would give the Armed Forces of Ukraine access to one of its satellites. ICEYE is the new global space leader in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging technology based on small satellites. Its solutions give commercial and government partners persistent monitoring capabilities for any location on Earth. During this visit, you’ll visit ICEYE’s lab to see small satellites and learn about how spaceborne technologies transform methods used to make sense of the changing world and help people make informed, data-driven decisions as they address time-critical challenges such as floods and other natural catastrophes, national security, and infrastructure monitoring.

Kela: The fight against COVID-19, a true behind-the-scenes story

In Finland, Kela is the government institution that oversees health care for all citizens, putting it on the front line during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kela’s Hanna Nohynek became one of the expert spokespersons in the Finnish media during COVID and played a key role in the national fight against the pandemic. She is extremely well-informed on the global status of COVID-19, having been elected in 2022 as the chair of the World Health Organization (WHO) Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE). 

In addition, Hanna Nohynek is the chief medical officer heading the Unit of the Vaccine Programme at the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare, which gives her unique insights into the pandemic. Hanna Nohynek will share with us her experience in creating and executing COVID-19 plans to build resilience and fight the pandemic.

This event will be hosted by Kela, the social insurance institution of Finland that provides social security coverage for Finnish residents through different stages of their lives. During the visit, you will have an opportunity to join a guided tour of the Kela building, which was designed by famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. The walk-about will be hosted by Ville Korhonen, Kela’s director of communications.

Please note, participants for this tour will need to present a government issued-ID (passport) upon arrival.

Korkeasaari Zoo: Protecting biodiversity

The Korkeasaari Zoo, established in 1889, is one of the oldest zoos in the world. But it is much more than a zoo: Its mission is to conserve biodiversity and participate in in-situ conservation work to protect the originał habitats of various species. There is also a wildlife hospital in Korkeasaari. This hospital is the largest treatment facility in Finland for injured or orphaned wild animals.

This unique visit to the zoo island will be hosted by Dr. Sanna Hellström, director of Korkeasaari. Sanna Hellström is not only a passionate conservationist but also a researcher and political influencer. She conducts research to improve animal well-being and the success rate of conservation work. 

Korkeasaari Zoo is uniquely located on an island in the Baltic Sea. The trip by ferry takes only 15 to 20 minutes from the Helsinki City center.

Marimekko: Finland’s signature design house

This original fashion and design house will open its doors to us as we get a private, behind-the-scenes tour led by the company's CEO Tiina Alahuhta-Kasko.M

arimekko, the Finnish textile and clothing company, was founded in 1951 by visionary designer Armi Ratian. Today, Marimekko is still known around the world for its iconic, nostalgia-inducing designs. Its range of bright and colorful textiles are still printed in Helsinki to this day, and the beautiful designs can be found on clothing, bags, tableware, and home décor accessories. Marimekko designs are instantly recognizable, joyful, and colourful, many evoking simple things in the natural world.

When Armi Ratia fouded Marimekko, she took the first bold steps to mold Finnish fashion with brightly coloured printed fabrics and simple styles. Later, even Jackie Kennedy fell in love with the brand and wore a Marimekko dress on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine in 1960. Those first bold steps are being replicated today under the leadership of Ms. Alahuhta-Kasko. She will host a special behind-the-scenes session with our group, where IWF visitors will be able to sense both the unique atmosphere of the design house and see the printing machines as they manufacture dashing prints and bold colours that will last into the coming centuries. Join us as we celebrate one of the most quintessential and timeless symbols of Finnish culture.

Musiikkitalo: The Helsinki Music Centre

With a 1,704-capacity concert space and five auditoriums, the magnificent Musiikkitalo opened in 2011. In 2024, it will finally have a new organ at its heart, one that will have 123 registers, making it one of the largest modern concert hall organs in use today.

Join us at the Helsinki Music Centre, one of the city’s newest landmarks. With an acoustically first-class concert hall, the centre provides a wide range of musical experiences: home of the Sibelius Academy, one of the largest music academies in Europe, and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra with which the academy has educational cooperation. The building itself is understated, designed to blend in with surrounding lawns and parks, but the interior is dramatic, with an openness that facilitates dialogue and interaction among professional musicians, students, and audiences. A vineyard-style concert hall is at the heart of the building, accessed through the circular foyer that wraps around it. The soundproof glass walls afford views of the crater-like interior from the foyer and lobby areas, which serve as a café and exhibition space during the daytime. Our tour will be hosted by IWF member Nelli Kuokka, head of communications of the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki.

Please note this tour will depart Pikku-Finlandia by foot (3 minute walk to the music center and 10 minute walk to return to the hotel)

Naava: Bringing the outdoors inside

Naava begins with a bold mission: We believe that healthy air and genuine everyday interaction with nature are human rights. Its famous easy-care green walls and sustainable indoor furniture designs bring the outdoors into our work spaces, creating the most human-friendly indoor spaces in the world. Take a deep breath of fresh, healthy, forest-grade air, just as you would do in your favorite nature spot.

There is a good reason people who live in cities often choose to vacation in the countryside, contributing to the popularity of hiking, camping, seaside visits, and outdoor sports. From an evolutionary and biological point of view, we are not meant to spend our lives inside concrete boxes—and yet, that’s what most office spaces are like. 

At Naava, you can experience what an indoor space feels like at its most natural, then get an inside look into the science and technology of the world's leading and most advanced intelligent living walls and furniture. Learn from the experts about how you can optimize your own working environment for health, productivity, and happiness. Hear from Aki Soudunsaari, the co-founder of Naava, an award-winning Finnish furniture innovation, about the implications on leadership that biology provides and how biology-first thinking can improve your organization's performance.

At the end of your tour, you will feel less stressed and more relaxed, making it easier to concentrate and breathe.

Nokia:  The Nokia Centre of Excellence prepares for the metaverse

No, Mark Zuckerberg did not create the metaverse. The concept of an immersive, 3D internet that will transform how people live their lives has been around for decades but has recently entered our collective consciousness. Imagine a shared virtual universe where the digital and physical fuse together to redefine the way we live, work, play, and socialize. According to the technological research and consulting firm Gartner, by 2026, 25% of people will spend at least one hour a day in the metaverse for work, education, socializing, entertainment, and shopping. Furthermore, Nokia believes there will be multiple metaverses, not just one, with each catering to different customers, companies, and communities and falling under three broad categories: industrial, enterprise, and consumer.

Sari Baldauf, chairperson of Nokia and one of the most powerful businesswomen in the world, according to The Wall Street Jounal, will be our tour guide at the Nokia Centre of Excellence where we’ll discover how Nokia and its award-winning Nokia Bell Labs have become frontrunners in developing solutions that will enable this new world to come and act together.  

As one of the most sustainable companies globally, Nokia strongly believes in inclusion and diversity (I&D), and you will also hear about how it creates business success via true inclusion.

Oodi Library: An ode to words and sustainability in an award-winning library

With words printed around a double-helix, central staircase that reaches from the ground to the top floor, Oodi, which means ode in English, is an homage to words and knowledge, housed in a building made from the wood of spruce forests near Helsinki. Locally sourced and sustainable, with a small carbon footprint, Oodi has a collection that includes about 100,000 items available to borrowers. Most of those are located on the third floor in what is appropriately called “Book Heaven.” From 3-D printers and robots that move books to meeting and event space, the library serves as a sort of living room for all who come here. It even has a secret story room for children, with its door hidden in a bookcase! Named by the International Federation of Library Asociations as the Best Public Library of the Year in 2019, Oodi is Finland’s flagship library, standing opposite the Finnish Parliament House in a stunning, modern building that is an excellent example of Finnish architecture. 

Our tour will be guided by Maija Berndtson, the Helsinki City Library's director (1987–2013) who played a central role in planning Oodi Library.

Please note this tour will depart Pikku-Finlandia by foot (6 minute walk to the library and 12 minute walk to return to the hotel)

Polaris: Visit a working icebreaker and learn about navigation in Arctic conditions 

All hands on deck for this unique opportunity to visit Finland’s flagship icebreaker Polaris. You will learn about how icebreakers work, their importance, and the challenges of safeguarding maritime traffic in harsh winter conditions to keep the Arctic routes open.

Built in 2016 by Arctech Helsinki Shipyard and launched in early 2016, Polaris is the most powerful icebreaker ever to fly the Finnish flag and the first icebreaker in the world with dual-fuel engines that use environmentally friendly liquefied natural gas (LNG), as well low-sulfur marine diesel oil (LSMDO). Commissioned by the Finnish Transport Agency (TFA) and owned by the state-controlled Arctia, Polaris was designed for the most challenging ice conditions in the Baltic Sea. With its excellent maneuverability, Polaris can perform oil-spill response operations, as well as emergency towing and rescue operations on the open sea all year round. You will hear more about its operations during the visit get a guided tour of the icebreaker, so come prepared to climb some stairs—don’t forget to pack your practical shoes!

Ritva Viljanen and Vantaa: From medieval village to modern, innovative city

On this tour, you will meet Ritva Viljanen, an IWF Women Who Make a 
Difference award winner in 2021 and the mayor of Vantaa, Finland’s fourth-largest, and one of its most rapidly growing, cities at the historic Helsinga location, which dates back to the Stone Age.

Mayor Viljanen has had an exceptional career in leading positions in Finnish public administration, often being the first woman in these roles. You can join a discussion with Ritva Viljanen during which she will share her personal experiences in leading an international and innovative city and in tackling unexpected situations and challenges. She will also share examples of how Vantaa is preparing for a sustainable future.
 
During this tour, you will also visit an historical Helsinga site—one of the best-preserved cultural landscapes in the City of Vantaa. In particular, you will hear about how women have lived in the Helsinga area and how, today, active citizen participation keeps its history alive. On the tour, you will have an opportunity to visit the beautiful medieval St. Lawrence Church dating from 1450, the oldest building left in the greater Helsinki area, and to discover the traditional, idyllic country village right in the heart of Vantaa. 

The home of Vuokko and Antti Nurmesniemi Kulosaari: Iconic design in architecture and beyond

Vuokko and Antti Nurmesniemi’s studio home in Helsinki still fascinates with its timelessness and modern use of space. People have been admiring this home, located on the seashore but hidden from view, for close to fifty years. The atelier home encapsulates the couple’s lifestyle, which was devoted to design and friends. Although this 1975 home is not open to the public, we have a rare opportunity to visit this incredible space, which has been featured in several architectural magazines. The couple’s home on the island of Kulosaari is an elegant modernist design, representative of the strong mark Vuokko and Antti Nurmesniemi have left on Finnish design heritage. The influential and visionary couple has influenced many fields with their unique thinking: fashion, furniture, and china, to name a few.

Vaisala: From hunting hurricanes to monitoring the atmosphere on Mars

Data may not be sexy, but it drives the future of our planet—and even space exploration. Vaisala, which develops, manufactures, and markets products and services for environmental and industrial measurements, employs over 2,000 professionals worldwide. And Europe’s Financial Times listed it in 2022 among the top-five companies that achieved the greatest reductions in greenhouse gas emissions since 2015, making it a global leader. The old adage “Measure twice; cut once” is even more critical in today’s data-driven world. You may be wondering how Vaisala’s R&D centre impacts everyday life. The answer can be found in the areas of liquid measurements, power, roads, life sciences and pharmaceuticals, data centers, meteorology renewable energy, and industrial measurements. One example is better maritime forecasting on Earth; another is using space-proof sensors to effect data measurement on the Perseverance rover that is monitoring the atmosphere on Mars, thanks to Vaisala’s collaboration with the Finnish Meteorological Institute and NASA. No stranger to space exploration, Vaisala’s space odyssey began in the 1950s. Understanding environmental footprints and acting to create a sustainable future are important in all industries, and Vaisala works to achieve those goals. Its R&D centre of global measurements and technology is used in all corners of the world—and beyond. Here you will learn about real-life examples of early warnings during hurricanes and energy-efficiency improvements in data centers. This global technology leader is located in Vantaa, a short distance from Helsinki’s city centre.

VTT Technical Research Centre: Where magic happens through science

Owned by the Finnish state, VTT solves the biggest challenges of our time and turns solutions into business opportunities such as the following: producing food without fields, meat without cows, and eggs without chickens; replacing fossil-based plastic packaging with wood-based alternatives; and solving persistent global problems with quantum computing, a fundamentally new way of harnessing nature to do computation. This might sound like sci-fi but it’s the new reality.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is one of the leading research institutions in Europe. When you visit VTT, you will learn about the immense possibilities of deep tech and how it can be turned into business opportunities that create sustainable growth, jobs, and well-being. And you’ll get acquainted with Finland´s quantum computer Helmi, one of only five quantum computers in existence in the world today. During this tour, VTT will challenge you to think unconventionally.

Please note, participants for this tour will need to present a government issued-ID (passport) upon arrival.

Wärtsilä: Where innovation in sustainable technology and services improves marine and energy markets

Discover what it means to be “a global leader in innovative technologies and lifecycle solutions for the marine and energy markets” on this tour of the Wärtsilä Helsinki Campus, which is powered by renewable energy sources: sun, wind, and water. Members who tour Wärtsilä will see its sustainable actions time wall, the 250m2 experience center where they can virtually visit a power plant or a cruise ship and experience its industry-leading, smart, and innovative solutions in action. A 10-meter, 180-degree curved wall will also allow them to observe vessels in action, moving around the world in almost real-time, and participate in a discussion about the company’s operations. Wärtsilä employs more than 19,000 workers in eighty countries but operates globally. It has evolved from a sawmill operation established in 1834 to diesel, gas, and hybrid engines, then expanding into the sustainable energy and marine markets. This tour will be hosted by IWF member Henrietta Haavisto and Wärtsilä EVP HR Teija Sarajärvi.