DigiReactor is now gearing towards the project’s end, so now is a good time to reflect on some of its impacts from a regional development company’s perspective. In the past, we have been involved in several projects with both Turku University of Applied Sciences and Turku University and the co-operation has always been smooth and productive. This has been the case this time as well, as we have implemented all the different activities of DigiReactor together with shared responsibilities and common goals.
For Turku Science Park, the project has been a good compliment to our services aimed at beginning stage companies, that includes all who are thinking about becoming entrepreneurs, who already have a team, and early-stage startups. The focus on digitalization and digital product development is very much at the heart of the kind of companies with growth potential that we want to support. Therefore, DigiReactor has been an excellent channel for us to do just that.
Arranging the two series of six informational event series at the beginning and midway point of the project was Turku Science Park’s main responsibility and, again, we feel that this fit our needs very well. We arrange hundreds of events every year on all aspects of entrepreneurship at SparkUp – our startup hub. This series of events was an excellent opportunity to offer high-quality keynote speeches from a variety of experts on digital product development to our community as well as to new people interested in the topic. We were especially delighted to have such a high number of immigrants and exchange students amongst our participants.
We asked for feedback after each event and the average score was 4.59 out of 5. This, and the comments we received, told us that the keynotes and know-how of the experts who graciously gave us their time were very much liked and appreciated. We especially appreciate all who gave their time during the breaks and after the events to answer an onslaught of questions from the audience members. We are confident your answers and comments inspired and heartened many a questioner.
An important aspect of the events was using them to inform and persuade the attendees about the following, much more in-depth, workshops that followed. This is a good place for me to thank our partners from both Turku University of Applied Sciences and Turku University for the hard work they did during the events to recruit members to DigiReactor’s activities. Thanks to this hard work, we saw many interesting digital product ideas further developed in the workshops. From Turku Science Park’s perspective, these kind of ideas are exactly the kind of potential beginning stage teams and startups that we look to further mentor and guide in our StartingUp and BusinessUp programs. And we are happy to say, several participants have expressed interest for further mentoring. DigiReactor started in the middle of the Covid pandemic and that certainly affected the event series and the way it was carried out. In retrospect, we could have maybe spent more time and effort in marketing to reach an even wider audience. Also, a large number of no-shows for events is clearly a trend in this post-Covid world. Despite these small gripes, we are happy with the results achieved in the project and it has been a great pleasure to work with our colleagues from Turku University of Applied Sciences and Turku University.