New article: When games and regional development met – InnoGS project partners’ visit to Finland

InnoGS (Innovation Through Gamification Solutions) is an Interreg NPA project exploring new ways to strengthen regional vitality and resilience through digital and gamified solutions. The project develops place-based digital innovation communities (Digital Innovation Districts, DIDs) and promotes international collaboration so that good practices and working models do not remain limited to individual regions.

One way the project strengthens a shared direction is by visiting each partner country, and this time it was Finland’s turn. Over three intensive days, the consortium visited local learning environments, game industry actors, and communities that support games as a hobby in Kuopio, Jyväskylä, and Helsinki. Alongside the visits, we worked in workshops on upcoming project outputs and gathered practical insights into how ecosystems, events, and communities can be built in a sustainable, long-term way.

The visit brought together representatives from Finland, Ireland, and Greenland. Unfortunately, partners from Sweden and Iceland were not able to attend in person, but we involved them as well as possible through remote participation.

Yle interview – before the visit officially began

The visit began in advance at Savonia’s campus in Kuopio with an interview by Yle, featuring representatives from Savonia and Greenland’s Ministry of Education and Culture. The discussion highlighted the project’s aims to strengthen digital skills and opportunities for young people in rural areas through games and gamification.

The interview also touched on the role of the communication platform Discord in the project’s work, including North Karelia’s eNuokkari and efforts to prevent loneliness in Greenland. The interviews, conducted in Finnish, were published on 24–25 February 2026 in Yle’s Eastern Finland regional news, online news, and Koko Suomen Radio.

Kuopio: How shared doing creates communities

The first full visit day took place at Savonia’s campus in Kuopio, where Ardán’s delegation from Ireland also joined. The programme included joint project work, after which we learned about Savonia’s activities and the local game developer community, IGDA Kuopio Hub.

Perhaps the key takeaway of the day was the significant role that game jam events—organised a little over ten years ago—played in the birth of Kuopio’s game developer community, and in enabling the growth of game companies in the region. When low-threshold making meets regular routines, it creates room for learning, new ideas, networking, and trust—exactly the elements also central to the project’s DID thinking.

The chairperson of IGDA Kuopio Hub Adam Al-Sawad shares his background and the history of Kuopio’s game developer community with the consortium.

Jyväskylä: An ecosystem connecting companies, education and projects

On the second day we travelled to Jyväskylä to learn about the work of the Jyväskylä Game Industry Hub Expa and Digi & Game Center. Representatives from EXEN Esports, JAMK University of Applied Sciences and the University of Jyväskylä were also present, presenting their activities, education, and development work linked to playing games and the games sector. The day concluded with a visit to JAMK’s GamePit Pro facility to explore its possibilities for esports, games as a hobby, education and project work.

At Digi & Game Center we learned about their ecosystem built largely through volunteer efforts in Central Finland, involving, among others, the City of Jyväskylä and regional education organisations. The partners collaborate to ensure that digital and games sector talents have access to support as well as employment and networking opportunities. A key message was also clear: decision-makers need to understand the importance of the games sector so that education, co-working spaces and ecosystem activities form a mutually reinforcing whole.

This expertise also fed into the day’s joint workshop, where we examined the digital skills and competence pathways needed across the project regions.

After the day in Jyväskylä, Ardán’s representative Eoin Butler Thornton described how inspiring it was to see the wide range of support for the games sector in Finland—and noted that they will take these learnings back to Ireland.

During the presentation, an Expa co-founder and board member Tuomas Roininen illustrates the broad range of professions the games industry employs beyond programmers.

Helsinki: Assembly – a meeting place for game culture

On the third day we visited Assembly Winter 2026 at the Helsinki Messukeskus—Finland’s largest festivals of digital art and gaming. The CEO of Assembly Organising Lassi Nummi introduced us to a LAN and game culture meeting place that has evolved over more than 30 years, where young people meet peers and popular content creators in a safe environment.

The visit made tangible what organising an event of this scale requires: robust network and power infrastructure, a clear production model, effective marketing, and active sponsorship sales. The discussion also underscored the decisive role of volunteers—without them, an event like this would not happen.

The day also included a “Digital Innovation Policy Roundtable” with participants from our partner countries both on-site and online. Topics ranged from linking digital innovation to S3 regional development, to digital nomad visa practices, and to new technologies for improving internet infrastructure and connectivity—including in times of crisis.

In the workshop, participants worked in small groups to identify key opportunities and risks, agree one concrete step for the next 6–12 months, and then compile the core findings for a joint discussion.

Lassi Nummi introduces Assembly Winter 2026.

What did we learn from the visit?

The strong sense of community within Finland’s games ecosystems and the scale and significance of game culture are hard to fully grasp until you experience them first-hand. The visit reinforced four key points:

• A well-functioning ecosystem needs space and routines: Regular meet-ups, clear responsibilities and shared ground rules make activities sustainable.
• Community grows through doing: Game jams, workshops, mentoring and study links create pathways for new makers.
• Engaging young people requires safe and appealing channels: Low-threshold activities and accessibility are essential.
• Events are “the glue”: They bring people, ideas and collaboration together and make expertise visible.

A representative from Greenland Cathrine Meldgaard Jensen commented that the visit to Finland provided valuable insights and strengthened their motivation to apply these experiences to developing playing games and esports from a Greenlandic perspective. Assembly Winter 2026 was particularly inspiring, and they also shared that they have just launched a Discord server for gamers in Greenland, welcoming anyone interested to join the conversation.

Next, collaboration will continue with the actors we met, and the lessons gathered during the visit will be carried into both the project’s pilots and regional development work across the partner regions. Even though distances from Finland to our international partners are long, ongoing dialogue and follow-up discussions can thankfully continue online.

Warm thanks to everyone who made the consortium visit possible and shared their expertise! Collaboration and open dialogue strengthen InnoGS’ aim to build sustainable, inclusive and internationally connected digital innovation communities.

Finally, the project manager Mariia Hämäläinen summed up the value of meeting in person: “We work mostly online in this project. These rare opportunities to work and spend time face-to-face significantly strengthen our collaboration!”

Group photo of the InnoGS consortium and stakeholder representatives at the Assembly Winter 2026 event.

Read Ardán’s post about their visit to Finland and feel free to join the “Greenland Gaming” Discord server

Authors

Kalle Sievänen, RDI-specialist, InnoGS -project, Sustainable Societies’ research field, Savonia University of Applied Sciences
Sami Partanen, RDI-specialist, InnoGS -project, Wellbeing research field, Savonia University of Applied Sciences
AI has been used in writing the article.