International EuCNC’2017 will gather technology experts in June

This was the first year of the 5GFWD – Oulu 5G Innovation Challenge. The competition reached its goals in immaculate fashion. Competing proposals were submitted from all around the world, and the expert jurys have evaluated the standard of proposals as extremely high.

The competition will continue next year. 5GFWD Oulu 5G Hackathon will be arranged in connection with the EuCNC’2017 conference in 12^th June 2017. The EuCNC – European Conference on Networks and Communications – is an annual series of conferences that gathers the leading global names of the telecom industry together to exchange their views on the development and product innovations in the field of telecommunications. Last year the EuCNC was arranged in Paris, France. This year the conference sees its 25th anniversary in Athens, Greece, and next year the meeting will take place in Oulu, northern Finland.

The Oulu 5G Hackathon has a brawny group of sponsors behind it. The cluster of organisers includes the City of Oulu, BusinessOulu, Oulu Innovation Alliance (with their partners) and Nokia. Further technological backing comes from the 5G test networks developed by the University of Oulu and the Technical Research Centre of Finland. Oulu University of Applied Sciences also participates with a special ecosystem of smooth commercialisation that they have developed.

According to BusinessOulu Executive Director Juha Ala-Mursula, the closing 5GFWD challenge is a perfect example of the opportunities that the Oulu region and its experts can offer to 5G developers.

”The level of expertise in the teams from around the world was superb,” Ala-Mursula praises. He expects next year’s competition to attract a similarly elite crowd.

”We will attract the sharpest and most inventive coders and developers to participate,” Ala-Mursula promises.