Smart hub boosting countryside

Osaango decided to leave its Helsinki city office behind and change completely to a remote work model. Geographical dimensions have not limited the team, as clients and colleagues are located all over the world. So, the transition to a new era was very smooth.
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With the change, an opportunity opened up for Osaango to establish a village office and meeting place in Ryttylä, Hausjärvi. When Marjukka Niinioja, the founder of Osaango and a fourth-generation Ryttylä leisure resident, got a hint about this, she let her innovative ideas fly free. The end result was Punka Hub in Ryttylä’s old bank building, a couple of minutes away from the railway station. The new workspace has attracted a lot of people from near and far, and the management of the municipality is delighted with the new colourful event and working space, which unites the villagers and presents the new possibilities digitalization has to offer. The plan is to gradually build the Punka Hub into a smart home and office demo space, where one can explore e.g. various solutions that increase energy efficiency. After an eventful conceptualization and moving phase, the opening ceremony was already held at the end of July.
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"We have worked with many universities, cities and companies, both in Finland and around the world, and especially with the pandemic we have found that distance doesn't matter, at least when it comes to consulting and developing digital services. However, many of the services we help to develop are by no means digital," says Niinioja.
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Osaango's customers are usually global enterprises or government agencies whose projects are related to data and interfaces as well as business development and automatization. However, there are exceptions: "For example, the development project for innovative public transport solutions in the Salo region aimed at developing and improving physical nearby services with the help of digital and data-based solutions. In the development project of Etelä-Savo and especially the Mikkeli region, opportunities were sought for the utilization of artificial intelligence and data in food production, water supply and forest industry. With HAMK's Smart unit, at the very beginning of the pandemic, the online course "Using data in business" aimed specifically at the development of Kanta-Häme's strategic topics such as bioeconomy, logistics and tourism in SMEs. In their own way, all of these have specifically aimed to increase vitality and attractiveness with the help of competence and service centres." says Niinioja.
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Time will tell what kind of fun and benefits the facility and service complex, named after the neighbouring Punkanjoki and Punkatie, will produce as Punka Hub. Osaango's goal is to find good partners in the region, with which it can produce added value both for the local area and more broadly, even for our global customers. The first step has already been taken, as Osaango's team helped the Ryttylä village association, directly from Punka Hub, to prepare an online survey about safety and services, which is part of the Village Safety 2025 project.
At Punka Hub the people of Ryttylä may now find a bench powered by solar energy to charge their device and enjoy the day on.
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More info (in Finnish):

https://punkahub.com/f/elinvoimaiset-kyl%C3%A4t-ovat-turvallisia 

https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12552170 

https://www.ryttyla.net/blogi/ryttyla-ja-lahialueet-mukana-kylaturvallisuus-hankkeessa 
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Solar panel bench: https://punkahub.com/f/aurinkoenergiaa-ja-istumatilaa?fbclid=IwAR1erfDck4KjsqgwpYEuixl0tXsvL54zsXBOx-6y5zcwqxyhplT9NUwvu-4

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