A few weeks back, we at Mingle Advisors were honored to help the City of Oulu to host the delegation of the City of Hangzhou throughout their visit in Oulu, Finland. The main purpose of the visit was to celebrate the Hangzhou – Oulu Sister City collaboration and take part in BRLC (Belt and Road Local Committee) activities organized at Polar Bear Pitching.
Sister Cities since 2011, Oulu and Hangzhou are now ready to take their collaboration to the next level. During the week we witnessed some great discussions about future projects with City of Oulu, BusinessOulu, University of Oulu and Polar Bear Pitching among others. The fruitful week was concluded at the grand opening ceremony of the BRLC Arctic Gate at Oulu Market Square.
Based on the meetings, speeches and activities that took place in Oulu, we can identify three clear breakthroughs. Firstly, the representatives of the City of Hangzhou stated in front of the representatives of the City of Oulu that Oulu is their most active and committed partner in the world. This was an especially rewarding moment also for us at Mingle as we have been witnessing and supporting the evergrowing collaboration between the Sister Cities already for a few years.
Secondly, we can happily say that Polar Bear Pitching was a success and the opening of the BRLC Arctic Gate was the cherry on top of the cake. The unique pitching competition gathered broad interest both nationally and internationally. In China, even the main news channels such as CCTV and Xinhuaacknowledged in their news the brave startups that pitched their innovative solutions from an ice hole carved in the frozen Baltic Sea. We hope that in the near future we could see all the fun happening here in China as well!
Thirdly, it was great to see various meaningful meetings and discussions taking place during the week. The discussion topics revolved around, for example, investing in startups, landing foreign companies to China, and pinpointing possible channels to help bring young talents to China and especially to Hangzhou. We firmly believe this year will be even greater than the previous ones what it comes to the collaboration between Oulu and Hangzhou. The Sister Cities have already showcased the strength of their ties in the fields of education, government, and tourism over the past few years. We believe this is the year they can get concrete things forward also in the fields of business technology and investment.
Lastly, we would like to send our congratulations and thank all of the Hangzhou delegation participants as well as all the people we met last week in Oulu. We are so happy and honored to be able to do what we love and together with many great organizations help building bridges between Finland and China. If you want to know more about us, Finnish or Chinese startup scene or China-Finland relations, please do not hesitate to contact us at any time. We are happy to share our insights and help connect you forward!
Check out the below video about Polar Bear Pitching in the Chinese news!
Super cool!
