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Small and medium-sized enterprises play a significant role in Finland's sustainable growth. Aalto University actively develops cooperation with them to bring design and research into the everyday life of companies.

Finnish Design Push offers companies fresh perspectives and concrete development ideas – and students the opportunity to apply their skills to real business challenges while together learning about the role of design in business.

In the fall of 2025, a group of Finnish technology companies presented development challenges to design students, which were solved using service design and interaction design methods. In the Digital Service Design Project course, students from the bachelor's program in Design and Media, who come from all over the world, worked with companies for seven weeks in an intensive development process geared towards improving the offering of the participating companies.

"We want to strengthen the role of design in Finnish companies and introduce the Finnish technology industry to our international students and vice versa”, says Teemu Leinonen, one of the directors of the English-language bachelor's program.

The course leaders, teachers Núria Solsona Caba and Antti Salovaara, guided the students throughout the process – from mapping customer understanding to developing and testing prototypes.

From analysis to prototype

This year, the partners for the course were: Dewaco, Mivepa, MyData, Norelco, Vitec, and Wideflow. The partner companies were found in collaboration with Technology Industries of Finland.

During the course, the students analyzed the company's existing service operations by creating a customer journey map. This insight, combined with interviews with customers and stakeholders, formed the basis for identifying a new or improved digital service interactions that address current customer and business pain points. The companies commented on the work of the student groups and helped guide the work forward.

The students then designed an interactive prototype, which was tested with the company's customers and internal users, providing fresh insights into how the new interaction improved the service experience.

The results of the student projects were presented at a Demo Day 16 October, where partner companies and representatives of the Technology Industries had the opportunity to test the solutions developed by the student groups.

Companies gained new insights

Dewaco, a city supplier of equipment for water, wastewater, and sludge treatment, sought new ideas for developing its digital services through collaboration. The specific goal was to create added value for customers by improving the Dewaco after-sales service, whilst supporting the customer’s business performance, streamlining operations, and improving the user experience of Dewaco products.

Next year, the new practices for company collaboration developed in the Finnish Design Push are on path to extend to another bachelor program at the school, enabling over 80 students each year an opportunity to work on real-world challenges in collaboration with industry partners throughout their studies. 

The project is made possible by the support of the Technology Industries of Finland Centennial Foundation, Von Julin Foundation, and Metex Foundation with a four-year grant.

Finnish Design Push is a joint research and development initiative in the education sector, established in collaboration between the Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture and Technology Industries of Finland. Its goal is to support students' transition to working life and promote the use of design in Finnish industry.