Folkhälsan to bring innovative ideas to elderly-care with Vertical

Folkhälsan is a non-profit social and health care organization with the mission to promote good health and quality of life in the Swedish speaking areas of Finland. Folkhälsan offers health promotion activities, social and health care services, education and research.

Early stage companies working on products and services enhancing welfare technology solutions that empower and enable elderly people in their daily life the health care and wellness technology industry in the context of elderly-care will get a unique opportunity to pilot and test-bed digital solutions in Folkhälsan’s service centers.

In addition, the selected teams will get access to Folkhälsan’s vast networks and knowledge and will get the opportunity to spar with the best professionals in the field.

Folkhälsan will be working closely with Vertical and the teams in the co-development of the solutions and projects.

The selected teams should ideally have expertise, resources and be located in Finland or the Nordics. Alternatively, companies outside the Nordics happy to regularly travel or relocate can also be considered. The selected teams should have genuine ambitions for doing good to the community and the society.

“This initiative is part of our digital strategy”, says director Niklas Talling at Folkhälsan. “We are curious and interested to learn about the start-ups, their methodology, tools and their mindset. Together with the companies, we want to develop the ideas and the innovations in tune with our social agenda to promote better health and quality of life.”

“We are thrilled to welcome Folkhälsan to our partner family and work with them. Our goal is to co-develop and bring new ideas to the market in the elderly care field” - Vertical accelerator CEO Paolo Borella says - ”By 2080 it is expected that the amount of senior people in the European Union reaches 149.1 million from 93.9 million now. Of those, 63.9 million people will be aged 80 years or over compared to 26.0 million 2014. This means, that as a society we need to find ways to introduce new services and technologies allowing our senior citizens and relatives to enjoy longer, more independent and happier lives.” ¹

Folkhälsan is the newest addition to Vertical’s group of partners. The previous company to join Vertical ranks was Stora Enso, with a unique project combining executive education by Aalto ENT and startup acceleration in the renewable field.

In addition to Folkhälsan and Stora Enso, Vertical partners include Samsung, one of the world’s leading device manufacturers, Fazer, a Finnish food and food service company and the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa, one of the largest hospital districts in the world.