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Koillismaan Yrityspalvelukeskus YPK Oy
Naturpolis, Torangintaival 4, FIN-93600 KUUSAMO tel+358-8-850 6685, fax+358-8-851 4561 INFORMATION SOCIETY PROJECTS - AN EFFICIENT INSTRUMENTFOR JOBCREATION AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTBACKGROUNDThe region Koillismaa (North-East Finland) consists of three municipalities, Taivalkoski, Pudasjärvi and Kuusamo, with the population of 35.000 on the area that is in the most Northern and Eastern part of the European Union. Kuusamo is one of the largest municipalities in Finland: * 5.805 square kilometers (1/5 of Belgium)
Since 1987 Kuusamo has been active in developing systems and telematic services that help people to communicate and work profitably. We have initiated this through the five point program: 1) Development of telematics culture and know-how
3) Improvment of telematic infrastructure 4) Involment of relevant interest groups 5) Emhasis on the improvment of telematic image of the municipality
PHASE1 1988-1990KUUSAMOon... was an umbrella for subprojects like: * RukaÄssä Teleshopping, the first in Finland * RACE APPSN (Application Pilot for People with special needs), services through video telephone connection for elderly and disabled people, the first trial, testing period of this EU-funded project happened in Kuusamo * Telecottage: information system services for all the citizens in Kuusamo * KASTE (from Fitter to Technician), the first 3-year distance education programme started in 1990 * MOVE the development of tecniques for distance education and X.400 e-mail network for schools and institutes * KUNPA, telematic services for the municipality * participation in national TELMO-project The main result of the first phase was better know-how of the field.
The first companies in the computer and telecommunication sectors started
their existence.
PHASE2 1990-1994During this period the local information network was founded, because
Internet did not exist yet. Almost ten percent of the families were users
of the services.
PHASE3 1995-1997The third phase started with the building of fast information network for the whole Koillismaa-Area. The second field of interest has been the development of distance learning: TISKO, from Technician to Engineer started 1996. Now Kuusamo is a participant of RUBIS project (Integrated Applications for Digital Sites) that is managed by TELAL from Strasbourg. Main task of the Finnish team in RUBIS is to transfer distance education know-how to the other members of the project. During the third phase many new companies were founded: ProTeam, PolarGIS, KuvaFantasia and Maisemakartta Mustonen that is doing an interesting "Positioning Project" (digital mapping and surveying). Today there are about 15 software and other companies in this field
in Kuusamo. These companies employ about 70 people. Companies like ICL
and Novo Group have used these companies for subcontracting.
SOME PROJECTS RIGHT NOWKuusamo and skiing resort Ruka are among the most popular tourist attractions in Finland: almost one million visitors every year. Now we put emphasis on the development of telematic systems that can help tourists to get more contemporary information of our area. Our target is to be good enough to fill the needs of the tourist industry in Kuusamo. In addition to this, production and know-how of telematic systems in tourist industry, are credible products to sell from Kuusamo. In addition to Pehmo Booking Systems there is lots of development work happening for tourist industry in Kuusamo. Next two projects are now going on: 1) realtime image and voice from Kuusamo on networks 2) use of www, multimedia and animation in travel marketing
REALTIME IMAGE AND VOICE ON NETWORK FROM KUUSAMO: RÄKIn Kuusamo and Ruka it is possible to ski for more than 200 days a year. Normally our season begins in mid October and it lasts until All Mothers Day in May. By using realtime voice and image in marketing we try to convince skiers RÄK started on september 1996. Until now we have succesfully tested
the use of videoconferencing systems on exhibitions and seminars.
Especially in Skiexpo in Helsinki in late October it has been really efficient
to show through ISDN-based videoconferencing system that people are already
skiing on white snow although it might be raining heavily in Helsinki.
This season a new feature on www and other networks will be the weather forecast of Ruka, so it will be easier to make decisions when to go skiing. The videoconferencing system of Ruka is open for calls when it is not used for exhibitions or other commercial uses. Please call +358-8-8660044 and +358-8-8660045 or + 358-8-8660070 and +358-8-8660071. Another point of interest is use of still pictures or "snap-shots" that are taken from the slopes and tracks and are sent to Internet trough GSM-data. For this we have tested new "Teleimage"-system. The feedback of the use of this realtime system on Hannover Cebit fair last year was promising. WWW pages of Ruka have been among the most popular in Finland: In November
there were 50.000 visitors to those pages. You can check Ruka on internet:
www.Ruka.fi.
3 WEB-, MULTIMEDIA- AND ANIMATION-TRAINING FOR PROFESSIONALS: Nep@Tourism is the most important business for Kuusamo and other municipalities of North-East Finland: the total income is some FIM 400.000.000. For marketing, companies and other local and regional touristorganisations use about ten million Finnmarks every year. Until now most of the marketing material has been done outside our area. We hope that in the future more of this work could be done competitively here. In Nep@, technology transfer project, local professionals get know-how of www, multimedia and animation from the best possible professionals. Nep@ started in February. Until now we have been responsible to make
the result service of "Snowboard Junior World Championships 13-16/3 1997"
to Ruka pages on Internet. We succeeded in that case and will succeed in
the future occasions, too. Watch out!
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