How Startups are building 5G services with Elisa in Finland

Startups building 5G services with Elisa, ranging from skateboarding in augmented reality to making remote diagnosis during surgery

Nine partners have now been selected for the Elisa 5G Co-creation Challenge, with applications coming from 12 different countries. The co-creation partners ranging from fledgling startups to multi-national corporations, were challenged to innovate new 5G services for consumers and corporates, utilising at least one of the key elements of 5G: ultra-fast broadband, low latency and massive IoT.

The 5G trials are very diverse and interest both consumers and corporations. Reality Crisis will create a multiplayer skateboarding game to collect, create and save parks and tricks, then replay them anywhere you want with augmented reality. While Grundium, who are already successfully executing trials between hospitals, are furthering the possibilities of telepathology and laying the groundwork for remote surgery. Zero Gravity, a European Space Agency hackathon winner, is exploring satellite data for smarter cities.

– From the consumer´s point of view the solutions that utilise 5G devices and virtual and or augmented reality are especially interesting. These startups are highly qualified and we expect a lot from them. It is great that we can provide them with 5G testing environments, where teams can run their trials, that really brings innovations to life, says Antti Ihanainen, Vice President of Elisa’s Consumer Subscription Business.

The Finns are the heaviest consumers of mobile data in the world, and now Finland is one of the few places globally with 5G commercially available. It’s exciting to see startups realising what are the possibilities for this society when the connections are 10 times faster. Elisa’s experts and the startups are eager to co-create this new 5G world.

Urho Konttori, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Varjo, is thrilled about the challenge:

– Mixed reality, 5G and edge computing are the technologies shaping our future. It’s with great pride that we work together with Elisa, the operator that has always been a world leading pioneer with mobile technology, to showcase the first true remote telepresence over 5G to Varjo’s human eye resolution headsets and Elisa customers, says Urho Konttori.

– I’m excited to see how the proposals have originated from existing customer needs. Many significant fields are featured in the challenge: public transport, construction, security and healthcare to name a few, tells Jorma Niemelä, Vice President of Elisa´s Corporate Customers Business.

The co-creation will begin in mid-August and lasts through September. The selected finalists will demo during Slush in November, presenting their solutions which aim to revolutionise their industries.

The prize for winning the Elisa 5G Co-Creation Challenge is a 25 000 EUR pilot with Elisa, along with the ability to present the solution at MWC 2020 in Barcelona. The finalist teams will also get a prize of 4 000 EUR. The winner will be chosen in November during Slush.

Participating teams:

Domos – The Gaming Fast Track solution enables telecom operators to offer a premium experience for the areas like gaming, video streaming, and video conferencing. Different services are dynamically assigned network resources that ensure the optimal quality of experience.

Duranc – Aiming to take video surveillance cameras to the next level, by providing intelligent real- and near real-time insights using an Artificially Intelligent Vision System.

Exove Design – A concept for real-time quality control mobile service. It can be utilised on construction sites to facilitate quality control and maintenance operations through-out the construction and building life cycles.

Grundium – Portable digital microscope scanner for solving the global problem, lack of pathologists to provide diagnosis for people in need. Grundium OCUS and 5G are a perfect couple as the remote user experience is depending on bandwidth and latency. Remote diagnosis is typically done during surgery operation and is extremely time critical.

Reality Crisis – Your mobile camera captures the world around you creating an instant virtual skate park. Collect, create and save parks and tricks then Replay them anywhere you want. Compete for High Scores on other players’ public parks or spots.

Tata Consultancy Services – Real time video analytics on Public Transport using high quality video streaming with 5G and AI/ML.

Tata Consultancy Services – A virtual reality app where an end-user can interact with customer service or buy products as he or she does physically in stores.

Varjo – Immersive telepresence of unprecedented quality streamed high speed over 5G to Varjo’s human eye resolution VR-1 and XR-1 headsets.

Zero Gravity – Has two products: UrbanAI and an eco-awareness mobile app, both heavily based on earth observation data. We are convinced that 5G technology is expected to be a game changer for software products based on earth observation data in the field of smart cities, automotive and sustainable development.