Technopolis looks into the past and future as it celebrates 40 years of adaptable workspaces

The idea of Technopolis, originally founded as Oulun Teknologiakylä Oy, was to create village-like communities and offer companies all the services they need to allow them to focus on their core business. From Oulu, Finland, Technopolis has gradually expanded to several cities in Finland and then to a total of 16 campuses in five other countries, including Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Lithuania and Luxembourg. The past four decades have proven that the Technopolis concept weathers economic cycles, massive societal changes and the transformation of working life resulting from new technologies and digitalization. Change has been not only rapid but ever faster in pace and continuous in nature.

Indeed, the office has changed a lot since 1982. Here are six things you found at the office in 1982 that you do not see there today. How many things can you identify?

In addition to looking back at the past 40 years, Technopolis wanted to vision what working life and workspaces might look like in 2062. For this job, the company turned to Dr. Kjell A. Nordström, a well-known economist and author, who was also a speaker at Technopolis Workplace Talks in September.

This is what working life might look like in 2062, according to Dr. Nordström:

“There is a revolutionary paradigm shift in how we organize the thing called work. Especially where we work, when we work and even with whom we work. The future of work will be framed and shaped by hybrid and gig working. Whether we like it or not, we probably have the greatest industrial tsunami in human history ahead of us.”

Niko Pulli, CEO of Technopolis, agrees with this prediction. “We are confident that there will be a place and demand for offices also in the future. The most important thing is that offices and workspaces need to adapt and evolve according to the changes and changing needs of working life and people using those workspaces.”

Here are six things you find at the office today that you will not see there in 2062:

Our ways of working have changed and evolved tremendously over the past 40 years, supported by rapid technological development. The recent Covid-19 pandemic has further accelerated this development, forcing organizations to rapidly reorganize their ways of working.

“This is the perfect time to rethink how, where and when we work best from the perspective of the individual and the community,” says Pulli.

“The message we hear from our customers every day is that there is a huge need for people to come together and meet face to face again after 2.5 years of solitude. We strongly believe that work is much more than executing to-do lists, and that employee engagement, organizational culture and long-term success are built in face-to-face meetings outside of actual task execution.”

Technopolis was founded in 1982 to support the growth of the electronics industry in the Oulu region. The first campus was located at a former dairy facility in downtown Oulu. From that very first village-like community, Technopolis has grown and expanded into an international shared workspace expert supporting 1,500 companies across six countries. However, the DNA of Technopolis has remained the same despite rapid technological, cultural and societal changes: to build communities and offer companies all the services they need to allow them to focus on their core business.

“Our operations have been guided by the same principles for the past 40 years: drive, service, integrity, and adaptability. The world around us keeps changing rapidly, and so does working life. And we are adapting to these changes and our customers’ needs every day, just like we have done for the past 40 years and look forward to doing for the next 40 years,” Pulli concludes.

Picture sources: Finna.fi, Unsplash, Adobe Stock, HS Aikakone

For more information, please contact:
Niko Pulli
CEO
Technopolis Holding Plc
Tel. +358 40 544 9014
niko.pulli@technopolis.fi

Technopolis

Technopolis is the shared workspace expert. We provide efficient and flexible offices, and everything that goes with them. Our services range from workspace design to reception, meeting, restaurant, and cleaning solutions. We are obsessed with customer satisfaction. Our 16 campuses host 1,500 companies and 45,000 employees in six countries within Europe.

In 2022 Technopolis celebrates its 40th anniversary.