On Wednesday, May 7, the Digi360 event was held at Logomo in Turku, hosted by Robocoast EDIH. The event brought together a wide range of experts in digitalisation to explore its societal impacts from multiple perspectives. The day was opened by Mikko Puputti from Robocoast EDIH, who has long been building ecosystems that bring digitalisation into practical use for businesses.

Timo Aro, Strategy Director for the City of Turku, examined the effects of digitalisation on population structure. He highlighted how digitalisation is reshaping housing, education, and the structure of work – simultaneously decentralising and concentrating them. In addition to digitalisation, factors such as immigration, the growing role of knowledge work, and the age distribution of the population also influence geographic population trends – with as many as four out of five internal migrants in Finland being under 35 years old. The types of jobs available in the future will significantly influence where people choose to live later in life. Whether the state should try to influence these migration and employment trends is a major question in current policy discussions.

Cybersecurity took center stage in a presentation by Martti Lehto, retired colonel and Research Director at the University of Jyväskylä. Lehto reminded the audience of our shared responsibility in managing the risks of a digital society – the more we adopt digital models, the more cyber threats and human errors increase. Today, around 50 billion devices are connected to the internet, and this number is expected to double by 2030. Lehto challenged listeners to critically reflect on their own use of technology, noting that around 90% of cyberattacks can be traced back to human errors or misuse.