In May 2026, The Solutions Fund Effekt impact funding to four projects: Annie Advisor, WorkPilots, ODDfest, and Startup Refugees.
Learn about the projects in this concise three-question Q&A, where the recipients of impact funding share: 1) who they are, 2) how they are improving society, and 3) their initial reactions to the funding decision.
1) Who are you?
We are Ronny Eriksson and Aki Pöntinen, from the New Nordic Way ry and ODDfest teams.
Through ODDfest, we are building a shared gathering place and a platform for growth for the creative industries.
Finland is home to a vast array of creative talent: artists, designers, musicians, filmmakers, game designers, producers, creative communities, and cultural phenomena.
The problem is not a lack of creative talent, but rather that this potential often remains scattered across individual projects, events, and communities—and does not sufficiently connect with the expertise of businesses, the financial sector, the technology sector, and the rest of society.
ODDfest brings this field together and builds bridges between the creative industries and other stakeholders in society.
Our goal is for the creative industries in Finland to be seen not merely as culture or entertainment, but as valuable expertise that transforms ideas into tangible experiences, products into desirable items, cities into attractive destinations, brands into meaningful entities, and innovations into concepts that people can understand. Furthermore, this work has intrinsic value that fosters well-being in its surroundings.
2) How do you improve society?
We want to help build a Finland where expertise in the creative sectors is utilized more widely than it is today in the development of society, businesses, cities, and the economy.
Professionals in the creative industries do work that every forward-looking society needs: they create meaning, experiences, communities, stories, and the ability to spark people’s interest.
In Finland, this expertise is not yet sufficiently recognized as a social and economic asset. That is why ODDfest creates spaces where creators, audiences, businesses, funders, cities, and institutions can come together in a way that goes beyond mere chance.
We aren’t building all of this on our own, but we want to create opportunities and frameworks that bring people together, through which the potential of the creative industries can be transformed into new forms of collaboration, global visibility, and value for Finland.
3) What are your initial thoughts on the funding decision?
My first feelings were gratitude and relief. ODDfest has been built with a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and faith, but also with limited resources. This funding decision will help us continue to develop our operations for the long term.
The most important thing was the realization that people outside our team can also see what we’re building. That this isn’t just about a single event, but about long-term work to strengthen opportunities in the creative industries in Finland.
In practice, this funding allows us to do things a little sooner and a little better: start preparing for next year in good time, expand our network of contributors, build partnerships, and develop our activities beyond the event itself.
For us, this means, above all, confidence that this work is worth continuing, and that the development of the creative economy is seen as something people are truly committed to investing in.