The InPlace staff is on the run this fall and here's another travel blog for you.

The wonderful people at Tekes, AFDA, AmCham and Geowise decided to bring a delegation of people from the Finnish Defense and Security Industry over to Washington DC to learn about the possibilities and opportunities (check out the details here). Well, as an SME you would have to be pretty dense to pass over on something like that, wouldn't you? As it turned out, this event was more than successful; everyone came back rejuvenated and with their pockets lined with calling cards and contacts.

We started planning and preparing for this event last spring and during the last 6 months we've had a lot of training, some endured, some enjoyed, but everything in order to prime us for meeting up with the really serious players in the US. And I am happy to say it payed off.

The people in the Finnish delegation represented companies dealing in very diverse fields and since most of us don't compete in any way, there was a lot of synergy to be found. I learned a lot about advanced product/process design (www.desigence.com), biometric security (www.deltabit.fi), software testing (www.codenomicon.com) and body scanning (www.asqella.com) - among others. Nothing I really knew anything about before, but now I am wiser and that doesn't hurt, does it? Please look these guys up and find out what a Finn can accomplish, when he really sets his mind to it.

And as always, you got to have time to have some fun. Please find photo evidence below of an opportunity to test drive – well test-sit actually – a lunar landing module. Tuija Karanko is doing the actual work and yours truly tries – as always in a cool vehicle – to look cool. Picture by Miranda Saarentaus.

 

That's it. I really hope to eventually write you a follow up on things discussed at this event.