On Thursday morning the gates of the Ruissalo Shipyard opened to welcome attendees to the most intelligent business meetup in Finland. The 2019 theme for SHIFT Business Festival, Shapeshifting Intelligence, promotes a holistic view of intelligence in business: profit alone is not enough when companies seek to solve social and environmental challenges as well.

The opening day was filled with world-class international speakers. Richard Yonck from Intelligent Future talked about the future of human-machine coexistence as well as about developing artificial emotional intelligence. Jumanne Rajabu Mtambalike, CEO of Sahara Ventures, conversed with IBM Finland’s Country General Manager Mirva Antila about the use of deep technologies in developing countries to create new business and combat climate change. Responsibility and accountability for AI along with the political and social challenges surrounding it were key points in a keynote by Joanna Bryson from the University of Bath and Catalina Butnaru from City AI.

In addition to international companies and speakers, Finnish experts from various fields took the stage. A panel discussion about autonomous and automated harbors highlighted opportunities and challenges of digitalization in the maritime industry. The panelists included Mika Ruokonen from Futurice, Jussi Poikonen from Awake AI and Lasse Eriksson from Kalmar Global. Niklas von Weymarn from Metsä Spring and René Backes from BASF talked about innovations in the forest industry. Jyri Arponen from Sitra with Laura Juvonen from Technology Industries of Finland discussed the use of circular economy in business.

The first day of SHIFT also included two book releases, Olin joukosta nuorin by Erkki Liikanen and Exit by Anssi Kiviranta and Matias Mäenpää, as well as the final of the 5G Hackathon by Elisa and the city of Turku. The hackathon hacked solutions to loneliness and social isolation using 5G technologies, with the top three teams competing in the final: Know Your Hoods, T34M and CareBot, with innovations concerning immigrant integration assisted with a digital platform, AR technology for learning practical skills at home, and emotion recognition with AI, respectively. The winner, Know Your Hoods, received a 10,000 euro prize.

Also, RealValue.ai CEO Anupam Kundu made their GAME (Gender Age Mood Ethnicity) algorithm available as an API for SHIFT attendees. You can go to RealValue.ai/API and get started for free. Otherwise, the day will conclude with festivities and networking later tonight, with the shipyard piers hosting live music and a light show.