#OpenFinnovation

What happens in Loviisa today? The picture was taken a few minutes ago from our office window. People gathere around the ice cream kiosk to chat. We've a good public transport between Loviisa and the coastline to Helsinki. You can travel by bus to St. Petersburg. The town hall is on the other side of the market squre (at left). I've seen two other persons from Loviisa writing in Qaiku occasionally. That means three out of 15 000 inhabitants. If I want to speak with the locals, I need to go to the cafeterias or lunch restaurants. This is a pretty small town but it's not a futuristic digital village. I've no idea about daily news in town. There are two local newspapers Loviisan Sanomat and Östra Nyland. I write occasionally in Östra Nyland about business, regional development, technology and economy.

We've a nice weather here today. The population grows with fifty per cent during the summer time when students come back home and summer guests populate their houses. Loviisa has two nuclear power plants at Hastholmen and they will produce electricity until 2027 and 2030. Fortum didn't get the permission to build a third one. There are plans to build and windmill park with approx ten windmills. Loviisa is a leading user of bioenrgy for district heating. We're way above the national average which is sixty and here 84 %.

This is our office building. I'm reporting from the second floor. The picture is taken 16.5.2005 and now - five days later - the central park is all green already. The summer is advancing fast. We work about 50 t0 75 per cent of the time from Loviisa and the rest from Sotkamo which is 550 km north.

This is the Loviisa town house. The Swedish party RKP / SFP does have a majority. Language is a part of politics. It's one of the reasons this town never became an industrialized location. Swedish speaking people were afraid to loos the majority and as a result this is a well preserved beutiful place with very little economic dynamism. I like to live in Loviisa. We've good connections to Helsinki by car or public transport (bus). It takes and hour by car and 1h45 with a bus. All daily servicies are within walking distance. This is a great city for the "rollaattory population". Agening of the population causes grey hair to those who try to figure out city finances.

What about digital services? Loviisan Puhelin is building a 100 Mb fibre cable network for the Loviisa region (television, internet, phone, cable-tv). But the penetration is still quite low. We don't have a local radio station. It would be fun to create a local podcast radio with someone willing to move to the town. I've been talking with Marjut Ståhls about building such a service. But talk is cheap, it should be done. Good ideas just have to be executed. We could then send live reports through qaiku. When can we have embedded video and podcasts? I mean opening to qik, bambuser and YouTube.

This boxing champion Eva Wahlstrom is from Loviisa.

Public Service Spending is a big issue in our town. How to manage health care for an agening population?

There has been a talk about "rantarata" - coastal train connection to St. Petersburg and Moscow for forty years but still nothing has been done. We might need some competition for faster development of railway services.

The future of shoppin will happen from our homes, offices or while on the road. This means that we don't need to build big shopping malls around the country. All the products can be delivered in a meaningful context to our big screens at home or personal shopping pads in the car. We select what we want and the stuff is deliverd by Post / Itella, DHL or and rapid delivery service.

I continue my HYPERLOCAL test reporting about Loviisa and would like to see stories from other towns and communities as well. This place would need new sparkling ideas, more innovative people and fresh talent to create post-industrial jobs and businesses. It's a nice town, but there aren't many persons to talk with about futuristic issues.

This is my home street (kotikatu) five days ago.

This is also Loviisa (winter picture). It's one of Finland's largest cities (third largest by area). The city center is tiny and compact with about half of the population. The rest is country side. The City of Loviisa consists of Loviisa, Ruotsinpyhtaa, Pernaja, Liljendal from the beginning of the year.

According to the Finnish Wind Atlas study (Tuuliatlas) should windmills be located out at the sea to get best efficieny. But there are probably big risks involved as well. Europe is supporting bioenergy and windmills with a myriad of national support programs. We might get about one thousand windmills around the Finnish coast line. Loviisa might get a windpark within the next coming years. Fortum is a potential builder. Location close to the two nuclear power stations with existing powerlines and infrastructure.

The Local Report from Loviisa continues. It was still very cold in the morning 3.5.2010 and now the central park is green and the temperature is over 20 C.

I will travel to Tallinn next week and speak at the BlogFest 2010.

I've no idea about how many bloggers we have in this town.

We've of course HELGE! This glocal news report continues...

Let's get back to the small town shopping sphere. We don't have all these fancy shops but maybe the "Digital Age Farmers Bible" (Sears Catalogue) would help us to spend all our money over Internet?

We've to do it. This town needs a podcast and webcast radio station. Why can't we just do it? It's not such a big deal. We can get this thing started. It would be nice to have more people working with this to get diversity.

Today it's no problem to create a small town or individual video channel. Webcasting can be done with small and cost-effective tools.

Loviisa and Los Angeles, what's the big difference? We can create augmented realities. Let's get started today.

Visiting Loviisa? Come as you are!

What about Southern Finland as a part of Europe? Are we still trapped in a nationalistic and regional tradition? What is required to become true Europeans?