Helena Kurki
Innovator
The Innovation Centre
Sweden
Economic
Rural Areas
Remote rural areas
The innovation journey
The Innovation Centre is a knowledge bank that complements and extends municipalities’ work with business and entrepreneurship development. The centre connects rural entrepreneurs and businesses with stakeholders and supports systems that typically are located in urban areas.
Currently, Helena Kurki is the Business manager and an innovation advisor at the centre. She was also part of the start-up of the innovation centre in 2015, steering the mission towards societal change. The centre makes available information about existing support systems that might be needed to support rural businesses.
The innovation impact
The centre offers:
– advisory meetings with businesses in order to guide and support them
– contacts and suggestions for rural businesses, including information about local and region support systems that are relevant to rural businesses
– meetings and seminars for idea generation, sharing innovations, developing business relationships
– creation of collaborations through events
– lobbying to direct attention to the challenges and needs of rural businesses
– development of new models and tools to create a financially sustainable and flourishing rural business landscape
– highlight the importance of challenging the urban bias in innovation systems and effectively represent rural businesses
– emphasis on the importance of relationships, dialogue, and networks in a rural context
– support and dialogue that are necessary to help ideas become innovations