On Monday 10 June, the Embassy of Finland co-organized Doing Business with Finland seminar together with Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) and Kenya Healthcare Federation (KHF) having over 80 participants. The house was packed throughout the day and potential new partnerships were being created.
Our Finnish company Nopia (CEO Juha Suojanen) gave interesting insight into electric vehicle transportation during the Urban Mobility Summit. Our Finnish company Nopia (CEO Juha Suojanen) gave interesting insight into electric vehicle transportation during the Urban Mobility Summit.
On Tuesday 11 June Business Finland and Save the Children co-organized Innovation for Development and crisis workshop tackling the local challenges together.
The health delegation visited the Makindu Sub-Country Hospital in Makueni County, which gave useful and practical information on the Kenyan healthcare system. Other site visits were organized on Thursday.
The day ended with a Networking Reception hosted by Ambassador Erik Lundberg where the discussions continued in a warm and relaxed environment.
Wednesday 12 June kicked off with the opening ceremony of the Innovation Week. In his speech, the Ambassador of Finland emphasized the importance of partnerships in sharing lesson from the Finnish system. In the high-level speeches, Finland was thanked for its long-term strategic partnership. Since Nairobi Innovation Week 2017, the discussions continued with Nokia and UNICEF leading up to a partnership.
Fingo’s all day programme focused on innovations and digitalization with a special emphasis on human rights centered digital change. UNFPA together with the Embassy of Finland organized a co-creation workshop on innovations for health focusing on women and girls’ rights as well as also on their opportunities as innovators. The event gathered several hundred participants highlighting the important theme of sexual and reproductive health and rights and promoted the upcoming ICPD conference. Sonja Karjalainen, Executive Director of Lunette participated in the panel.
Finland was well represented at the Exhibition and our booth gathered a continuous flow of people interested in the Finnish success story.
Towards the end of the Innovation Week, our Deputy Head of Mission Ramses Malaty participated at NIW Innovation Summit on Friday 14 June and concluded the week with a speech about the inspirational and transformative success story of Finland.
The Nairobi Innovation Week was a big success and several new partnerships were created. The feedback from the participants have been very positive and we welcome everyone back to Nairobi. We want to thank the University of Nairobi as well as our other partners Business Finland, Save the Children, Fingo, Lunette, UN Resident Coordinator, UNFPA Kenya and UNFPA Innovation Fund.