Gaining access to the North American market may have just gotten a little bit easier for Nordic companies developing solutions for sustainable, livable and smart cities.
The Nordic trade promotion agencies, with support from Nordic Innovation, have now developed the Nordic City Solutions platform where Nordic companies can showcase their solutions for selected cities in North America.
“We’re here to help bring solutions from the Nordics with a real business case to help solve problems that North American cities are facing”, says Pamela Lynn Tiller who manages the Nordic City Solutions platform.
Tiller, ordinarily a Senior Advisor with the Danish Trade Commission in Toronto, explains that the North American cities all have demonstrated their interest in Nordic solutions to solve their challenges with sustainable urban development, with one city even providing the opportunity to collaborate on a large development site master plan with a Nordic focus.
The cities have all been carefully selected after extensive ground work with city and government officials, private sector stakeholders like chambers of commerce, NGOs and businesses, as well as community members.
Bringing value to Nordic companies
The platform, which was officially launched at the Sustainable Urban Solutions in Copenhagen May 23 during the Nordic Clean Energy Week 2018, is roughly based around the following three themes:
- Smart cities
- Resilient cities
- Healthy cities
The work has now started to find Nordic companies that are interested to take part in the platform. Participating companies will get ahead of the curve for opportunities in lucrative markets through, among other things, face time with the city stakeholders, branding through the platform website and access to urban labs and workshops with the right local stakeholders.
Interested companies can contact the following Trade Promotion Organization representatives for their home country in North America:
- Business Sweden – Mats Shore
- Business Finland – Veijo Komulainen
- Innovation Norway – Antonio Raposo
- Promote Iceland – Hlynur Gudjonsson
- Danish Trade Council – Jakob Schmidt or Louise Lund Harpøth
Backed by the Nordic prime ministers
The Nordic City Solutions platform is funded by Nordic Innovation through the Nordic Sustainable Cities project to showcase and export Nordic solutions to urban sustainable development challenges.
Nordic Sustainable Cities is one of six flagship projects under the Nordic prime ministers’ initiative Nordic Solutions to Global Challenges, which is coordinated by the Nordic Council of Ministers.
