Northern stars in Cybersecurity and New Space make the world a better place
The past years have shown huge growth in demand for situational awareness and cybersecurity solutions. Climate change, hybrid threats and cyber warfare have set new kind of requirements to sustainability and resilience of societies and businesses.
After a long era of remote meetings, this year everyone was eagerly looking forward to the opportunities for face-to-face discussions. Our goal was to share the coolest Finnish growth stories of companies such as Iceye and Hoxhunt, in addition to giving Finnish startups both an opportunity to pitch to investors and a platform for insightful discussions. And what could have been a better time to arrange this kind of event than next to Slush, one of the largest digi startup events in the world? This is why we decided to arrange the networking event Northern Stars in New Space and Cybersecurity.
The year 2022 has included more unexpected and unwanted developments, and although we always want to have a positive view of the coming year, it is clear, that the need to be prepared and resilient is not going away.
World's changing
Because of the above, we are currently seeing in new space domain that the need for situational awareness solutions, having ever higher refresh rate of data, is increasing. The huge amount of collected data necessitates the use of AI powered analytics. As the number of satellites is increasing, the need for better situational awareness is extending to space, where it is combined with the wider need for sustainable use of space. While the capabilities of commercial space sector continue to grow, its co-operation with defense and security sector is intensifying. Finally, although this year has forced us to consider new kind of challenges, the specter of climate change, and the need to act because of it, has gone nowhere.
What comes to cybersecurity, we've seen that all areas of digitalized world need to be prepared for malicious acts better in advance and also plan how to recover from incidents. Critical infrastructure from energy supply to logistics of businesses and transportation of people is being attacked heavier than ever for instance by ransomware, systems with operational technology (OT) demand special attention. This requires not only technological development and e.g. intelligent use of data and AI but also that the weakest link, people, need to be better educated from top management to grass root level.
Business Finland is your partner in building global business
During the Northern Stars in New Space and Cybersecurity event we learned a few things. First – no doubt these very digital industries have significant interest and appeal globally and for us to be able to answer the global challenges, we need to speed up the crosspollination of them with all industry verticals. Second, companies need to put always the customer first, be ready to boldly believe in their vision, go international and market their value proposition efficiently instead of too much tech talk. Fund sizes in cybersecurity and new space are growing and startup companies need to prove they are worth the investment.
Business Finland is ready to bring its stake on the table – we will challenge the customers to think big and utilize business opportunities on the booming markets, as well as highlight the importance of taking part in European and other international innovation networks, projects of European Space Agency and calls such as Horizon Europe, European Defence Fund and Digital Europe.
Read more about the Digital Trust Finland and New Space Economy programs.
Photos: Susanna Lehto