Who are the PCP WISE partners driving innovation in water management and climate resilience across Europe through Pre-Commercial Procurement? 

Our Partner Interview Series highlights the leading organisations in the PCP WISE consortium, showcasing their expertise, contributions, and key roles in the project. 

Each partner also shares its vision of how PCP WISE advances the European Green Deal’s objectives—whether by leveraging Environmental Observation (EO) data to tackle critical challenges or pioneering innovative governance and procurement approaches like PCP. 

🔍 Discover our latest interview to learn more about Forum Virium Helsinki and its impact! 

Briefly introduce your organisation

Forum Virium Helsinki is an in-house non-profit innovation company of the City of Helsinki. We co-create urban futures with companies, universities, other public sector organizations and Helsinki residents. Our main work areas are smart mobility, digital twins, data, smart city, green city, health, climate change resilience, energy, AI, and citizen engagement.

Our mission is to make Helsinki the most functional smart city in the world. Moreover, we provide a direct link to the city’s needs and priorities, ensuring that the project’s outcomes are relevant and beneficial for the city.

 

Introduce the team working on PCP WISE within your organisation

Meri Vainio – Project Manager

Meri Vainio is an industrial engineer with a (MSc in Information Networks) demonstrating expertise in both technical and human-centered approaches. Meri has a strong background in human-centered product design and development, co-creation, and agile development. She also has experience in building living labs in Shanghai and South Korea, demonstrating her international expertise in innovation and technology.

 

 

Juho-Pekka Virtanen – Technical Specialist

Juho-Pekka (JP) Virtanen (D.Sc., MA.) works as the product owner of the city digital twin. He aims to promote both the conceptual development of the city digital twin as a system-of-systems and the realization of concrete demos and embodiments of the concept.

He has extensive experience on geo-information research and development of geospatial information systems and has published extensively in academic journals. Working with Python and JS programming, Cesium -platform and related technologies, he has extensive prior experience in project-oriented work.

 

Aapo Rista – Data Engineer

 

 

 

 

Ruska Tapiovaara – Communication Specialist

 

 

 

What is your organisation’s role in the project? What unique contribution does it bring to PCP WISE?

Forum Virium Helsinki plays an important role in the PCP WISE project by utilizing its expertise in smart city development, data and AI, climate change resilience, and collaboration. As a member of the buyers group our contributions include:

  • Leading the co-creation and development of innovative solutions in Helsinki
  • Providing expertise in PCP Processes
  • Facilitating collaboration between stakeholders in Finland
  • Ensuring the project’s alignment with the City of Helsinki’s and other buyers group members’ goals

To what extent do you think PCP WISE will contribute to enhance Europe’s ability to adapt to and mitigate the effect of climate change?

PCP WISE will significantly enhance Europe’s ability to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change by developing and deploying innovative solutions based on space and EO data. The project will empower cities and stakeholders to manage water resources, predict and respond to water-related hazards, and plan for a more sustainable future. In Finland, PCP WISE will enhance the capacity to monitor and predict water-related hazards, improve water management practices, support sustainable urban planning and development, and strengthen collaboration and knowledge sharing.

To what extent do you think Environmental Observation (EO) and Innovation Procurement (IP) can help develop innovative solutions for water management and climate resilience across Europe?

At Forum Virium Helsinki, we recognize the immense potential of Environmental Observation (EO) and Innovation Procurement (IP) in driving the development of innovative solutions for water management and climate resilience across Europe. EO provides critical data for understanding and monitoring water-related challenges, while IP enables the development and implementation of cutting-edge technologies to address these challenges effectively.