Digitalisation used in the search for missing persons wins Suunnannäyttäjät competition
The RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aircraft System) project of the Lapland Police Department has won the Suunnannäyttäjät competition held by Suomidigi. The competition awards innovative ideas in digitalisation. Police in Lapland have led the way for the rest of the public sector by introducing a new life saving and replicable model enabled by digitalisation. The model involving RPAS uses a drone from the start in the search for a missing person, immediately after the police receive a report on the matter.
With RPAS, officers leading the search have a full service package built around the new equipment at their disposal. The aim is to speed up rescue efforts.
Highlighting the success stories of digitalisation
The Suunnannäyttäjät competition seeks to reward out-of-the-box development teams for outstanding development of digital products. The competition also seeks to draw attention to teams implementing the principles of digitalisation in a successful and creative manner.
”At the moment a lot of great work is being done in Finland to promote digitalisation. The competition serves to promote good examples that encourage others to digitalise their services and operations,” says the chair of the jury Anu Vehviläinen, Minister of Local Government and Public Reforms, who is responsible for the digitalisation of public services.
Other members of the jury included Anna-Maija Karjalainen, Director General, Public Sector ICT, Lauri Lyly, Mayor of Tampere and Mikko Rusama, Chief Digital Officer at Yle. Online voters were able to contribute to the selection of the winner by voting for six shortlisted development teams at Suomidigi.fi.
Finalists describe the possibilities offered by digitalisation
The second prize was awarded to Liperi municipality, which has introduced a system for payment by the hour to manage payments of childhood education services. The system enables efficient work shift planning while keeping in mind the best interests of the child. The comprehensive change in child daycare that is made possible by digitalisation has been implemented together with the parents. The third prize went to Finnish Wildlife Agency’s Oma riista service, which introduced a digital service putting the benefits experienced by the customer as the starting point. Hunters are able to provide information on game at the scene using their smartphones thus minimising the administrative burden on the authorities.
Other finalists included the Matriculation Examination Board’s matriculation examination, the development and theme networks of Tuusula municipality and the Ministry of Justice- document and case management system (AIPA). Citations for their valuable work were awarded to the Finnish Immigration Service for revamping its website Migri.fi, to Verkkopotku@, which is a project for supported housing for the mentally disabled and to The City of Helsinki for its Kehmet ICT development methods.
”The presentations of all the finalists showcased very well the possibilities opened up by digitalisation. They are excellent examples of what digitalisation is all about,” says Lauri Lyly.
The jury paid particular attention to the following matters in judging the entries:
- Doing things together in new ways
- Thinking out-of-the-box, using a bold approach
- The method used in achieving the results
- Supporting the less well off in society using digitalisation and in using digital services
The case descriptions provided by the competitors are presented at Suomidigi.fi
Suomidigi shares best practices in successfully completing development projects. The case descriptions provided by the participants in the Suunnannäyttäjät competition are placed in the Suomidigi’s Pelikirja, enabling the developers to easily have a look at how the other organisations have implemented the principles of digitalisation and what challenges they faced during the project. The competition was held in 2017 for the first time and organisers plan to make it an annual event.
Suomidigi encourages and inspires experts to boldly think outside the box and at the same time to challenge the developers of the public administration to think of the best ways to implement the principles of digitalisation. Suomidigi is part of Finland’s centenary celebration programme.
Inquiries:
Suunnannäyttäjät competition at Suomidigi.fi
Suomidigi presents awards to developers of digitalisation (press release 10 May 2017, in Finnish)
Riikka Pellikka, Specialist, Ministry of Finance, tel. +358 2955 30458, riikka.pellikka(at)vm.fi
Tuomas Vanhanen, Special Adviser to the Minister, tel. +358 2955 30216, tuomas.vanhanen(at)vm.fi