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The Digitalisation Act of the year 2020 -award goes to Digi & Game Center

Central Finland’s Chamber of Commerce’s Digitalisation and New Business -committee grants The Digitalisation Act of the year -award annually. This year the award was given to Digi & Game Center which helped to give birth to 12 new businesses and helped companies in the region in the use of game technologies.

With the award Chamber of Commerce of Central Finland wants to highlight Central Finland’s companies that have successfully taken over digitalisation.

“Digitalisation has become part of just about every industry. Such actors and co-operation as Digi & Game Center are needed to bring the growth potential made possible by digitalization to the benefit of companies” says Ari Hiltunen, CEO of the Central Finland Chamber of Commerce.

The jury of committee members justified the choice on the grounds that the Digi & Game Center has successfully helped entrepreneurs in the area to take advantage of game technologies. It has been used in industry, the arts and culture, among other places.

“The operations of Digi & Game Center are worthwhile both in building a new kind of digitalisation center in the Jyväskylä region and in disseminating game technologies outside the game industry itself. Increasing the added value of digitalisation just needs such cross-pollination” says Anssi Kuoppala, Chairman of the Digitalisation and New Business Committee.

The goal of the Digi & Game Center is to create synergies between companies in the digital and gaming industries and other industries, and thus help to create co-operation projects, companies and jobs between companies and educational institutions. Last year, the Digi & Game Center helped creating 12 companies, 8 of which were born during COVID-19.

“We are grateful that we were nominated for the award and were elected. The honour belongs to everyone in our network. We would not exist if we did not have these companies, educational institutions and entrepreneurs involved in the network” says Tuomas Roininen, Chairman of the Peliosuuskunta Expa, Operator of Digi & Game Center.

The ecosystem has been built for nine years. There are now 16 digital and gaming companies involved. At the beginning of last year, more than 400 people attended the opening of the Digi & Game Center alone.

Digi & Game Center is a unique concept

Digi & Game Center is not a company but a Central Finnish brand and concept that is operated by Peliosuuskunta Expa together with others in the ecosystem. The Digi & Game Center co-operates with the city, educational institutes and different businesses like Fingersoft and Amazon.

According to Roininen many regions are reducing their activities related to game-related studies which Central Finland has now begun to increase. The Digi & Game Center’s ecosystems goal is to bring companies and partners together and to get them to know each other.

“We strive to be another living room where a company or cultural representative can come on a low threshold to find a solution that suits their needs. Our desire is to develop the digitalisation of Central Finnish companies and to be the operator who introduces new digital functions at a low threshold” Roininen describes.

Roininen says that sometimes it is difficult for people to understand what game technologies and gamifications really are.

“It doesn’t mean making a game. For example, simulations such as airplane simulators, 3D models, or visual worlds of movies have been implemented with modern gaming technologies. It is good to understand that the same technologies are used in traditional industries. Experts will not be found on the traditional side, but it will have to utilize the multi-experts in the gaming industry, who are currently trained by JAMK and JYU in Central Finland” Roininen elaborates.

The concept has also been quoted abroad. The aim is to export operations abroad in the future as a licensing concept.