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In April, the Ministry of Finance, the Population Register Centre and Aalto University's Media Factory challenged students to design a digital Finland. The aim was to develop new kinds of creative and visual ways for presenting government register data related to citizens.

There was a lot of interest in the competition: all in all, 8,500 persons visited the kaikkiminusta.suomi.fi website. Eventually, 22 entries were submitted by the end of the submission period.

The jury of the competition selected three candidates for the final round:

• ”Roberto Danilo Aarnio” by Roberto Aarnio and Jesse Tielinen, Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences
• ”Muita herätteitä” by Joonas Pesonen, University of Eastern Finland
• ”All Around Me” by (Joanne) Nian Hwei Wong, Tampere University of Applied Sciences

The entries were assessed by the Managing Director of N2 Alex Nieminen, Dean of Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture Anna Valtonen, Chair of the ICT2015 working group Pekka Ala-Pietilä, Data Journalist at the Finnish Broadcasting Company Teemo Tebest, Designer and Creative Director of Nordkapp Oy Sami Niemelä, and Researcher of Digital Design and active member of Open Knowledge Finland Sanna Marttila.

'The entries we selected to the final round were clearly different from one another. The jury appreciated the finalists' fresh, light ideas, which all exhibited potential for further development with professionals', the chair of the jury Anna Valtonen enlightens the selection.

Each of the finalists will receive an award of 7,000 euros. In addition to the financial award, students get to utilise the competence of professionals in the field, who will help the students to further develop their original ideas into functional prototypes during October–December 2015. In January, the finalists will be judged in public, and the winner of the entire competition elected based on voting will be announced on 11 February 2016. The winning entry will receive an award of 8,000 euros.

The All About Me competition is related to the National Architecture for Digital Services, which involves constructing a digital, compatible infrastructure and provides a single outlet for electronic transactions for the use of citizens, companies and authorities.

As their material, those participating in the competition were provided with the register data of an imaginary person, such as information about the person's place of residence, facilities, vehicles and family. The aim was to design the visualisation for the register data: how to present numbers, titles and names as clearly and visually ambitiously as possible. The purpose of the design work was to produce an innovative online service or website.

More information:

Jani Ruuskanen, Project Manager, Service Views, Population Register Centre, jani.ruuskanen@vrk.fi, Tel. +358 46 920 6231

Marjukka Ala-Harja, Development Manager, Service Views, Ministry of Finance, marjukka.ala-harja@vm.fi, Tel. +358 2955 30489
 

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