ICT Turku making Southwest Finland an IT leader

ICT is making Southwest Finland into a leading IT subregion. The company is currently co-ordinating more and more joint European IT projects. These projects strengthen the mission of the institutions of higher education to lend research support to the objectives of business life. The companies gain access to the top research findings of the public sector while bringing research closer to practical applications.

Esa Tervo, Management Director of Genestia Group Oy and Kristiina Sunell, Program Manager of ICT Turku Oy. High resolution image (214 Kb) Photo: Petteri Laine

The new software tools on the development project are made according to the latest standards; the products manufactured with them are easier to sell globally and to update. Standards are used in the development work to ensure that the new tools for process-like software design are modern and compatible with the software products of international companies. With the new tools Finnish SMEs in the field of software will be in a better position to respond to the international challenge.

A product that includes good software is generally the result of good design of product requirements and functions and not so much the coding and testing stage. In those areas where reliability is crucial, such as logistics, defence and health care technology, the client has every reason to demand process-like product development, especially in software. Nowadays a lot of software development work is done without standards, tools and proper documentation. Thus it is problematic, slow and sometimes even impossible to make a new version of the product – updated according to requirements - on the basis of the older version. In SMEs in particular and in entertainment applications the software development work is generally poorly managed.

The development work on the new software tools is led by the Turku company Genestia Group Oy. Those involved in addition to ICT Turku and Devera are the University of Turku and Turku Polytechnic, likewise the French software company SoftTeam. The main Finnish financers of the project are Genestia Group and TEKES.

As part of the project, Genestia Group has brought onto the market the first design tools to support process-like software development and management. These have already been used to expedite the development of health care products. The company reports that the project is a good example of combining scientific research with practical needs.

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