HIIT supports event about socio-technological innovation for the economy

Economy is undergoing a shift and needs new global and localised socio-technological interventions to accommodate the changes. To address the issue, a seminar "Blockchain Experiment Starting: Can local currency become new strength of Helsinki?" was held on 7 September 2017. The seminar brought together institutions, activists, researchers and citizens to think about the core challenges related to monetary system today. It was organised by ValueCraft coop together with the Ministry of Finance and the Prime Minister’s Office, with financial support from HIIT.

The morning talks presented a versatile array of views on economy. Many investigated the opportunities created by local, community and digital currencies in connections with emergent technologies such as blockchain or the obstacles on the way of complementary currency experiment in Finland. The keynote speech was given by Susana Martín Belmonte from Instituto de Moneda Social, Spain. The afternoon was dedicated to, see more information about the event.

The overall attitude towards the topic was enthusiastic, yet the scene for local and complementary currencies experiments seems challenging because of the heavy regulation involved. Moreover, even if the time seems right to think of the economy in alternative ways, multidisciplinary academic research would be of benefit.

As a follow-up, the new initiative Aalto Observatory got seed funding from the Aalto internal seed funding call for the year 2018. Aalto Observatory looks to build a multidisciplinary academic research node on new economy and complementary currencies first inside Aalto, secondly globally. Both, ValueCraft coop and Aalto Observatory will continue to work on projects in the domain of new and sharing economy, including complementary currency interventions. For more information on Valuecraft, please contact Pekka Nikander, and on Aalto Observatory Maria Joutsenvirta.