Cycle for Creative Technology Education at Nexterday North and Slush

By Reetta Heiskanen, CCO at Mehackit

We don’t need to tell you that young people today are constantly surrounded by digital technology around the clock.

The big question is how to transform youngsters from consumers to creators, and give them the feeling that they can actually build things with the help of technology.

Mehackit is a non-profit organisation that brings creative technology and robotics to high schools in Finland. The Mehackit high school program will start in eight different cities and 25 different high schools and run from 2015-2016.

This November, attendees at Nexterday North and Slush have an opportunity to support both Mehackit and creative technology education in Finnish schools.

Nexterday North is the antiseminar for digital and communications providers to be held in Helsinki from 9-10 November. The massive startup conference Slush starts two days later and runs from 11-12 November.

By cycling at the event with the one-of-a-kind high-tech Italian Ciclotte exercise bike, you can help raise 5000 euros to build amazing technology education programs for high schoolers in Finland.

The Mehackit high school program format introduces creative technology to teenagers through fun and imaginative projects. The high school students gain hands-on technology skills in programming and robotics.

The dream of Mehackit is to support every young adult in the Nordics to get creative, confident and curious about technology. Mehackit’s activities – school courses, workshops and community programs – all contribute toward discovering the joys of creative technology.

The driving force behind Mehackit is to encourage young people to make their ideas happen – to create new products, services or games – using technology as a tool.

“Everyday technology is within everyone’s reach, but the development, customization and creative use of technology is limited to specialists. Mehackit wants to break these walls and show how valuable technology is. It can be used by anyone as a channel of self-expression”, says Mehackit founder Pia Henrietta Kekäläinen.

“We’re excited to have the Ciclotte exercise bike at Nexterday North and show our support and appreciation for technology education in Finland and beyond,” says Ari Vänttinen, CMO at Comptel. “At Comptel we are big believers in the power of learning technology at a young age, so this program really speaks directly to our core values.”

Join Comptel and Mehackit at Nexterday North and Slush and be part of the creative technology revolution!

Join Us at Nexterday North: A Can’t-Miss Speaker Lineup

By Ville Tolvanen, Digitalist Network, @VilleTolvanen

This November, I will join some of the world’s best and brightest minds in Helsinki for Comptel’s Nexterday North. Taking place 9-10 November – two days before the massive startup conference Slush – Nexterday North will be a non-traditional venue where enterprises, digital and communications service providers and everyone in between can learn, grow and be inspired. You can register for the show at this link.

The event will motivate operators, in particular, to start thinking differently about their organisation and the world around them. As we discuss in the Digitalist Network, digitalisation is having an incredible impact on businesses and everyday people alike. That creates a huge opportunity for to appeal and cater to their customers and peer networks.

Nexterday North’s speakers will show you exactly how to take action, and as moderator of the event, I’m thrilled to have a first-row seat. Here are a few keynote speakers who I am personally excited to hear from at Nexterday North.

Patrick Dixon

As a renowned futurist, Patrick is one of the business world’s leading thinkers. He is able to paint a picture of how global change calls for disruptive new business strategies, as described in his latest book, The Future of Almost Everything. He also happens to be an engaging keynote speaker, and the crowd at Nexterday North can expect to hear a radical vision for the future of business and technology.

Mårten Mickos

Mårten is a truly disruptive voice in the world of business. He encourages corporations to step outside their comfort zones and re-imagine how they manage and motivate teams. His track record speaks for itself: as the former CEO of MySQL and Eucalyptus and now a senior vice president for HP’s Cloud division, Mårten continues to demonstrate how global enterprises can succeed with a top-down, digitally enabled, culture-driven management style.

Linda Liukas

Linda’s story is inspiring. As the founder of Rail Girls, she developed global volunteer workshops that taught the foundations of computer programming to more than 10,000 women in more than 160 cities. She also wrote Hello Ruby, a remarkable children’s book that makes learning technology, computing and coding fun and exciting for kids. Linda has a creative mind and an artist’s flair, and she’s setting the course for the present and future of programming. You can’t miss her keynote!

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vee is everywhere – he runs VaynerMedia (one of the world’s top 10 social media agencies according to AdAge) and Vayner/RSE, a top technology investment firm. He also writes books, hosts the #AskGaryVee web series and launched online retailer Wine Library. To put it simply, he is an absolute maven when it comes to marketing and running successful online businesses. Gary will appear by video presentation, I’m thrilled he will be able to share his expertise.

Kjell Nordström

If you want to know how your businesses can thrive in a radically changing corporate world, you need to hear from Kjell. He has been one of the world’s leading voices on the global economy, publishing several books that describe what it takes to succeed in today’s challenging business environment. His speeches have been called thought-provoking, entertaining and inspiring, and he is sure to offer Nexterday North attendees a roadmap for business transformation.

Nexterday North will be unlike any other conference you go to this year. I invite you to join me and the rest of the event’s speakers for what will be an exciting week in Finland. Register for Nexterday North here.

5 Reasons You Have a Latitude Problem If You’re Thinking About Coming To Nexterday North

So you’re thinking about attending Nexterday North, touted to be the antiseminar you’ve been waiting for and taking place on 9-10 November 2015, in Helsinki, Finland? It’s supposed to host an impressive list of keynote speakers, look at the telecommunications business landscape with a non-traditional mindset and combine cross-business insights, deep industry focus and the drive of the most ambitious startups in the world. Well think ahead, think again, think beyond and you’ll quickly understand why Finland is perhaps not the best place to be at this particular time.

1. You’ll See Helsinki, But Only From Indoors

Helsinki averages approximately 40 hours of sunshine for the entire month of November. Think about that for a while. The best the local weather has to offer is loads of sleet, piles of slush and streets full of virtually invisible black ice. Oh, and temperatures near or below zero degrees Celsius. To top it all, the venue is an old warehouse by the docks! How the heck do you occupy yourself in conditions like that? You’ll have no choice but to listen to some of the smartest people in the world share their radical ideas for the future of our business, and what’s worse, you might actually contribute, learn something new and meet interesting new people. Who wants that?

2. The Collective Blind Spot Is My Comfort Zone

Aren’t you already sick and tired of hearing about stepping outside your comfort zone? There’s a reason why it is comfortable: you’ve carved your niche, made your mark there and know the rules of the game inside out. There’s nothing wrong with sticking to your guns, right? The same goes for this “collective blind spot” nonsense. Let’s face it. It is just another marketing term trying to package someone else’s blind spot and sell it as an innovation to a new reference group. It doesn’t matter if this message is delivered by some of the most creative, proven and successful industry disruptors. You know, people like Gary Vaynerchuk, Mårten Mickos, Matthew Rosenquist or Ted Matsumoto. The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. At least not in November in Helsinki.

3. This Startup Trend Is Short-Lived Anyway

And talking about grass. We all know startups come and go. They are like blades of grass in a tornado: completely at the mercy of the elements. Sure, they sprout when the weather is fair and the sun puts the focus on them but when’s the last time you’ve heard about a startup that truly reshaped any industry landscape? Just look at Slush and their roster! Not many game-changers there, right? By the way, forget about hoping to see any grass in Helsinki in November. Even if by some miracle it were growing, it’d still be too dark to see anything.

4. ImpacTalk Sessions and Industry Blueprint Alley Are Not Right Up Your Alley

So somebody built an always-on ecosystem gallery introducing innovative and field-proven blueprints created by industry leading companies serving digital and communications service providers? Ecosystem sounds like hippie stuff. How about the ImpacTalks? They claim to be breakout sessions full of insightful, executable and field-proven insights about growth. Don’t be fooled by the description! It’s all about strong-arm tactics and about “offers you cannot refuse.” Yeah, that’s going to make an impact alright. Just like the sleet hitting your face in Helsinki in November.

5. So Much Fun, It May Kill You

So which is it? Fun or professional? Decide already! We all know you cannot combine a professional, industry-changing event with fun and games. If you’re having fun, you’re not learning anything useful and if you’re learning something, I’ll be damned if it is fun. I’d bet good money that there’s going to be a party at the event. Figures! The rumor also has it that the happy hour is going to legendary, and you know what they say about them, right? “Happy hour today is a crappy hour the day after!” This is a serious obstacle to true learning and development, which can only occur in a serious environment. In a party you just interact with a lot of people in a laidback manner, network your butt off with the best minds in (and outside) the industry and – what’s worse – don’t sit quietly with a stern look on your face. As stern as the weather in Helsinki in November.

So don’t tell me you haven’t been warned. You’ve been given a plenty of reasons to stay away from Nexterday North and go somewhere safer and nicer. But if you really, really want to challenge yourself, experience exotic conditions and rock your thinking, you can register for Nexterday North here.

Slush 2015 and Nexterday North: A One-Two Punch for Innovation

By Katja Kurisjärvi, Marketing Manager, Comptel

This November will be an exciting and energising month for the worlds of tech and telecommunications. Two major events, Comptel’s inaugural Nexterday North and Slush 2015, will descend on Helsinki, with the city welcoming thousands of tech leaders, entrepreneurs and big thinkers from around the world. It promises to be a full week of fresh ideas, big announcements and new visions for the future.

Nexterday North: The Antiseminar You’ve Been Waiting For

Just two days before Slush, Comptel will bring together the brightest minds in the digital and communications industry from 9 to 10 November with Nexterday North, which aims to take a fresh, bold look at the challenges and opportunities for traditional operators and emerging players and digital ecosystems.

Nexterday North will focus on three areas: Think Ahead, where we examine other industries to identify the industry’s collective blindspot, Think Again, where we re-evaluate industry learnings to challenge the status quo, and Think Beyond, where we’ll draw on the startup environment at Slush to find ways to think bigger and better about telco.

The event will also include Geekland, an invite-only Comptel user group that will share cutting-edge live demos, industry blueprint showcases and more. If you want to see what the future holds for your digital and communications services business, you need to be at Nexterday North.

You can register for Nexterday North at this link, and keep in mind that registering for a Nexterday Front pass will also grant you a Slush Conference Pass.

Slush

Slush is the leading European technology and startup event, organized in Helsinki and taking place from 11 to 12 November 12. The next world-conquering companies come to Slush to meet with venture capitalists, launch new products and share their technology breakthroughs with the global tech community.

The Slush program features a number of industries, including healthcare, education, clean tech, future enterprises and e-commerce. Speakers include the founders and leaders of tech unicorns such as Skype, King, Klarna and Supercell. The result is a palpable environment, with startups hoping to attract venture capital, media attention and technology partners, whereas investors come to look for the next billion-dollar company.

For digital and communications services providers, Slush is a great venue to learn about the emerging technologies that will continue to influence the behaviour of our generation. Slush is also a unique platform to identify business opportunities and connect more closely with digitally savvy consumers and businesses.

“With Nexterday North and Slush back-to-back, digital and communications service providers have a unique and exciting chance to hear from some of the world’s most creative thinkers and futurists in the span of a few days,” said Ari Vänttinen, CMO, Comptel. “Those four days in Helsinki will shake up the industry as we know it, providing the blueprint for what’s to come in digital and communications technology.”

“The Nordic countries have definitively put their name on the map of new technologies. The area accounts for 26 percent of all European exits yet has only 4 percent of the population,” said Marianne Vikkula, President and COO, Slush. “With events like Nexterday North and Slush, we want to make sure that the same development continues in the area.”

Charting a Future for Telco and Tech

The run up to Slush and Nexterday North also includes a number of 48-hour hackathons, including Ultrahack in which the Comptel team is participating from 6-8 November. Hackathons present a great chance for developers to refine their software with expert coaching on-site or build new innovations from scratch in a matter of hours.

It all adds up to what will be an exciting week in Helsinki. Visiting digital and communications service providers will be on the ground floor, where big ideas, concepts and partnerships are developed. You’ll learn about the technologies that are changing the world, the strategies that could change your business and the trends that are defining Generation Cloud.

The Comptel team is looking forward to an incredible series of events. We hope to see you in Helsinki.

Register now to reserve your spot at Nexterday North, and receive a conference pass to Slush 2015.