When Toni Aalto, entrepreneur of Pori-based Appis, heard about a delegation trip to the World Football Summit Europe (WFS) in Seville organised by the Sport Finland network, he wasted no time - a couple of weeks later he was already on a plane on his way to the event. After the trip, Aalto shared that in just two days, he gained more information and made more connections than he could have gathered in years on his own—and even then, he wouldn’t have achieved the same results.
Appis builds customised mobile applications and systems using artificial intelligence and modern technology for a variety of needs, including sports federations, tournament organisers and cities. Aalto says that the main purpose of the WFS trip was to see and hear what the football world is talking about right now and what developments are expected in the coming years. Appis is currently targeting the international market with an app focused on American football, so it is important for the company to mirror its own thoughts with what others in the sports world are talking about.
- Whatever the sport, the problems we solve are often the same - and this also applies to our customers outside the sports sector. In Seville, we also discovered that the Finnish sports world is currently talking about the same things as the Spanish, but on a different scale - they have a few more zeros in their budgets.
Aalto says that he has also listened to the WFS discussions from the perspective of where the world is heading, for example with artificial intelligence and automation.
Do your homework carefully
Sport Finland's role was to support companies during the WSF trip and to enable networking during the event. Aalto says that he gained a lot of new contacts from the event.
- There were many companies I had tried to connect with on my own but hadn't succeeded. In Seville, I managed to meet with all of them, and now discussions are ongoing with several. We're confident that some of these connections will turn into real business opportunities.
The Wave urges everyone going to such events to do their homework carefully: define what they want from the event and plan who they will meet at the event.
- The difference between the WFS and the regular trade fairs was significant: at the fair, you really want to meet people and have one-to-one conversations, not just wander around the stands. For me, the event was a useful and eye-opening experience that gave me a lot of confirmation about what we are doing as a company and where we are going. We must continue to participate in such events, as the costs are ultimately very small compared to the benefits.
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The business delegation trip to World Football Summit Europe in Seville was organized on September 18–19, 2024, as part of the Sport Finland network's activities. The network is based on a joint project led by the cities of Jyväskylä, Lahti, and Kuopio, supported by the European Regional Development Fund, and implemented between April 1, 2023, and December 31, 2024. The companies participating in the trip were eWatt, Awesome Crowd, Kuitu Media, Northern Sports Insight and Intelligence (ACT Head Impact Tracker), ONIT Sport, Nordic Rack and Office (nro.one), Dribla and Appis.
