Duration: 1.2.23 – 28.2.2025
Project partners: Turku University of Applied Sciences, Turku University, Business Turku (Turku Science Park Ltd.)
Funding: ERDF (European Regional Development Fund)
Project in a nutshell: Testbed services that combine sports and healthy food are missing from Finland. There are sports technology-related testbed services, for example, in Jyväskylä and Kuopio. Similarly, there are nutrition-related services in other parts of the country. However, there are no testbed services that combine a) human nutrition and food-related behavior, with b) sports-related measurement, assessment, and testing, in a real-world environment. There are already companies operating in the combined field of sports and healthy food.
As part of their product development, these companies need to have their solutions evaluated from various perspectives (such as effectiveness, reliability, user experience, and usability). Most of the companies are small and medium enterprises, without a formal testing environment for these properties. In the case of larger companies, maintaining these kinds of environments is often a matter of cost-effectiveness. In many cases, it is more effective to acquire the related testing services from a service provider.
Regardless of the size, there is a current and growing demand for new testbed services, that bring together food and sports to their service portfolio. In the project, the required testbed services are created. With the new services, companies may ensure that their solutions meet various demands, and they have more cost-efficient, and faster than-before services, at their disposal.
In Southwest Finland alone, there are app. 450 companies that develop solutions in the combined fields of sports and healthy food. In total, there are more than 3.200 companies in Finland that operate in the fields. When these companies need testbed services, they either have to a) use services of their own, or b) contact various individual service providers, that may reside in different parts of the country. From the perspectives of availability and service coverage, there is a need for new testbed services that bring together these seemingly separate fields of industry.
Duties of Business Turku: Business Turku is responsible for productizing testbed services. Testbed services are formed from the concepts of testbed services to create actual testbed services. Offering testbed services after the project requires the design and productization of these services.
Each newly developed testbed service is packaged as a separate entity based on feedback from end-users. Each service is defined with its own path, with the starting point being the Terttu integration service that integrates testbed services in the area. The central part of the path is a process compatible with the Terttu integration service, where responsible parties and contact points related to service production are defined.
In addition to the process, service promises and specifications for the customer are defined for the services. Although the Terttu integration service provides a natural point for integrating services into a larger context, the work package also considers describing services as part of international service frameworks, such as the European Digital Innovation Platform (EDIH).
Through this, the testbed services created in the project have an immediate interface with international companies. The endpoint for each new service in the work package is the assessment of their maturity (Finnish Academy, 337640).
In the maturity assessment, the operation of new services, such as resourcing and the level of documentation, is systematically evaluated from the perspective of customers and their needs. The goal of the assessment is to ensure that both the service and the organization providing it are ready to operate at the business interface.
Contact person in Business Turku: Hanna Aanila