The concluding seminar of the HAiLife project discussed the responsible use of data and EU regulation
The concluding seminar focused on the opportunities for business provided by responsible data and regulation. Katri Korhonen from the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra spoke about responsibility, Päivi Karkkola from Traficom about EU and national regulation, and Pasi Vuorio from LastBot Inc. about the opportunities provided by artificial intelligence. The event also showcased the data bank for companies compiled during the HAiLife project. The data bank of materials and links can be consulted on the HAiLife project website.
The event was opened by Project Manager Marguerite Guibert, after which she welcomed the first speaker, Katri Korhonen. She works as an expert at Future Fund Sitra in the Competitiveness through Data project. Katri builds understanding on the utilisation and sharing of data in innovation ecosystems, in addition to which she also develops tools and produces research data. Katri has over ten years of experience in project management in the ICT sector and consumer products.
In her address, Katri discussed why data is important, what a fair, sustainable or responsible data economy is in general, and what is encompassed by data responsibility or responsibility data, and reflected on various future scenarios for the use of sustainable data. In any case, data accumulates from and to everywhere, and the data economy is currently growing significantly faster than any other industry, so it is important to focus on it. However, data responsibility must be fostered, which includes sharing data in open data services, for example, and giving due consideration to the rights of individuals and the energy consumption of data use. At the end of her address, Katri gave tips to companies striving towards data economy and presented emerging topics in the field of data responsibility, such as EU regulation and energy efficiency.
The second speaker at the seminar was Päivi Karkkola, who has nearly a decade of experience in the utilisation of government data and data protection at Traficom. She is currently working with the national implementation of data regulation. Päivi's comprehensive presentation 'Turning data into business – opportunities and framework conditions provided by regulation' included an overview of the EU's new data and digital regulation, data protection and national regulation. The EU's data regulation and, more generally, data strategy essentially consist of five acts: the Data Governance Act (DGA), the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Data Act (DA) and the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA). Some of the regulations have only recently entered into force or are still being finalised, and their national applications are still pending. Päivi discussed some of the regulations in more detail, but also presented the data use enabled by the regulations, such as the avoindata.fi service.
The last speaker at the event was Pasi. He is a serial entrepreneur, developer and digital architect from Oulu, with over 25 years of experience in building software products. His latest venture, LastBot Inc., focuses on the utilisation of generative artificial intelligence in the automation of various human professions. After spending more than 1,000 hours in practical research and development, Pasi is one of the most experienced experts in large language models in Europe. His presentation focused on artificial intelligence and the new business opportunities it offers for SMEs. Pasi also addressed the importance of data and artificial intelligence regulations in his business. Pasi discussed artificial intelligence applications that he thinks are already useful in business for companies, and also considered the future of artificial intelligence in the Finnish business world. He used his own startup, LastBot Inc., as an example of a more advanced artificial intelligence application. LastBot offers an artificial intelligence application for marketing and sales planning.
The experts managed to keep the listeners interested throughout the event, and the feedback received from the audience was very positive. Good questions were asked, and the presentations were recorded. The recordings can be found from the project data bank, in which they are conveniently grouped under the relevant themes.