FBC 15th Anniversary Celebration

The FBC 15th Anniversary party on the 12th of December was celebrated at the Dubai Hills golf club. The Supernova band made sure everyone was well entertained and the beautiful setting and food at the Hillhouse Brasserie had everyone in good spirits.

One highlight of the evening was the revealing of the look and feel of the Finnish business HUB, which is a collaboration between FBC and Business Finland, and will open it’s doors in January. Heidi Metso from Redland who had been working on this project revealed the name - Welcome to Finnspace!

The FBC board was thanked by Vice Chairman Kimmo Kytösaari, and a special thank you went to FBC’s Honorary Chairman Jaana Räsänen-Pentti for her hard work during the past 10 years.

The celebrations would not have been possible without the support of our generous sponsors: FlyDubai, Redland, Cadmatic, Broadfolio, Arctic Blue Gin, Arctic Travel Boutique, Scandic, The Address Montgomery and the Dubai Hills golf club. A very big THANK YOU!

FBC 9th Annual Golf Championships

On the 12th of December 20 happy golfers consisting of FBC members and friends gathered at the prestigious Dubai Hills golf club to compete for the title of FBC golf champion of 2019. The lucky winner in the stroke play category was Fredrik Shauman with a score of 70 strokes. In the stableford category Keith Jeffrey had the best result with 44 points.

Petra Turkama won the longest drive for women and Fredrik Shauman won both longest drive in the men’s category, as well as closest to pin. The winner of the closest to pin in the ladies category was Riitta Saarinen. A special longest drive competition using a wedge was won by Rasmus Relander.

The prize ceremony was held at the FBC 15th Anniversary party which took place following the golf tournament at the Dubai Hills golf club. Congratulations to all the winners and many thanks to the Dubai Hills golf club for supporting the event and prizes such as golf and f&b vouchers. And a big thank you to our sponsor Arctic Blue Gin.

Innovation in cybersecurity

Fitsec Ltd is a Finnish cybersecurity company that offers innovative cybersecurity products and services. We are a small and agile company, with all our products and services being completely customizable to meet the exact needs of the customer. Our customers include governmental entities, defense agencies, finance and insurance companies and major international corporations.

The know-how and expertise of our company has largely been influenced by our CEO and one of the founders Toni Koivunen , and his lifelong passion for cyber security and extensive career history in the field. Previously, Toni has had a long career at CERT-FI (now known as NCSC-FI) the Finnish national cybersecurity organization and at F-secure, working as a malware analyst researching advanced targeted attacks. For 10 years now, he has been the chief cybersecurity expert at Fitsec, working on demanding assignments and as head of product research and development.

Internationalization is a natural part of expanding operations and we have finally matured to a point where we are ready to expand to new markets. Our products and services are now fully developed, and we are confident that the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) member countries are the best target to start our internationalization efforts. Among many reasons the most important ones are that advanced cybersecurity is in high demand and regarded as important for many reasons and based on our understanding, the GCC countries do not have that much of their own production in the cybersecurity field.

Targeted attacks pose an extremely dangerous, long lasting and hard to detect threat for organizations. Our main product APT-feed enables the protection of an organizations system infrastructure by providing data of the latest IOCs (Indicators of Compromise), which is data that is designed to be integrated into various systems in an organizations network infrastructure. Our other products include Sentry (detection service for targeted attacks), USBguard (mobile USB security solution), Asset Tracker (monitoring service for organizations sensitive data). We are also specialized on malware analysis and digital forensics.

The fast lane to success is digital

Redland - The Land of Growth helps companies grow by supporting their international business with marketing solutions.

We are an advertising agency, a communications agency, and a digital marketing agency in one package.  On average, our clients grow and evolve faster than their competitors. We have a holistic approach to serving customers’ business goals in marketing, communications, digital services as well as digital marketing. This is a proven recipe for results.

We, at Redland, understand your challenges

We have people who have been in your shoes; working as export directors or business ownersseeking for international growth and successful market entries.

- Our COO, Anne Laitinen, have been working years at Finpro, internationalizing tens of Finnish sme's. Also, she had a strong role at Isku Interior's export team; she was working at Kazakhstan World Expo for Isku. That brings us and our client companies valuable information how to utilize Expo's potential effectively, says Mari Masalin, the CEO of Redland.

Redland’s strength is in our versatility, and the fact that we genuinely have the ability to be a comprehensive growth and development partner for our customers.

Redland is a partner of Finnish Business Council.

Contact details:

www.redland.fi

Anne Laitinen, COO+358 504367050

anne@redland.fi

Cyber threats can be regional

The Internet has connected peoples and countries around the world. At the same time the Internet has created new global threats that ignore geographical and state borders. However, cyber attacks in the last few years have shown that regional cyber threats still exists.

During the past few years there have been multiple reports about cyber attacks against Western companies operating in the Middle East (MENA) area. Attacks have particularly targeted companies working in the energy sector but other industries have not been left untouched. Reported cyber attacks have disrupted or even stopped the business of the target companies. The roots of the events are linked to the political disagreements in the region. Cyber attacks have been used as one of the means of influence in this context.

National Cyber Security Centre Finland (NCSC-FI) recommends that Finnish companies operating in the MENA area should take the elevated cyber threat into account in the risk assessment. NCSC-FI also recommends to consider how to separate the information systems used in the MENA area from the core systems used in Finland, to prevent damage in the event of a cyber attack. Companies should also review and refine guidelines how to store and carry smart phones and laptops for example in hotel rooms.

NCSC-FI publishes information security articles, alerts and vulnerability reports in their public website For questions or observations you can directly contact the NCSC-FI by email at cert@traficom.fi.

Networking with FBC, SAKY and Finncham

Members and guests of the FBC gathered at the end of October at the beautiful Address Montogomerie terrace to mingle and network. Participants from Finnish companies visiting UAE from the sectors of bioeconomy, cleantech and water took part in the event.

Maria Sillanpaa, Founding Director of Sustainability Advisory, provided an overview of the ground-breaking Conscious Consumer UAE consumer insight study, the results of which were published late last year. The aim of our study was to understand the extent to which sustainability is important to UAE consumers and how it is affecting their consumer behaviours and attitudes. The study also sought to understand consumer expectations for businesses and the government in promoting responsible consumerism.

The event was organised together with Finncham and the Finnish Arab Business Association.

Pictured on the left Maria Sillanpää, presenter of the survey results, together with hosts Chairman of Saky Tytti Sirola, Jenni Isola Senior Adviser International Affairs at Finland Chamber of Commerce and Jaana Räsänen-Pentti, Honorary Chairman of the Finnish Business Council.

Pictured on the right Jukka Hämäläinen, Head of Region (MENA) Business Finland and Seppo Keränen, Senior Advisor Business Finland Dubai

Nordic Sundowner September

Members and guests from all four Nordic business councils gathered at the the funky Zabeel House hotel for the first Nordic Sundowner of the season. The evening took a great start with a talk by Dr Sami Mahroum - Director Research&Strategy , Dubai Future Foundation, and was followed by drinks and mingle at the Lah Lah bar. Thank you to everyone who came and to our sponsor of the evening - Clever Travel Consulting!

Finncham Workshop in Helsinki

On August the 23rd representatives from eleven different Business Councils/Finnish Chambers of Commerce met in Helsinki to share experiences and learn from each other. One big topic discussed was how the Finncham network could be promoted to companies in Finland looking to internationalize. The Finnish Business Council representatives from UAE informed others about Dubai Expo202 and business opportunities in the UAE. It was suggested that the Finncham network would have regional meetings annually and Skype meetings quarterly.

FBC Chairman Katja Boutou and Honorary Chairman Jaana Räsänen-Pentti attended the workshop from FBC.

FBC Iftar 28th of May

Once again FBC board and members gathered for Iftar to celebrate the spirit of Ramadan during the holy month. The Bacchanal restaurant at Ceasers Palace made the perfect venue, as it gave most of us the chance to finally visit the new hotel in Bluewaters Dubai. This year we made the Iftar into a family event and were happy to see so many members participating with their children.

Annual General Meeting 24th of April

On the 24th of April the Finnish Business Council held it's Annual General Meeting at My Office in Dubai Marina Plaza. 17 people attended the meeting.

FBC Chairman Katja Boutou presented the annual activity report for 2018 and concluded that FBC currently has 20 corporate members, 6 non-resident corporate members and 24 individual members. This is an increase in both corporate and individual members since 2017.

She then presented the Annual Financial Report for 2018, Program of activities for 2019 as well as the budget and membership fees.

The meeting selected following persons to FBC Administrative Committee for 2019 activity year: Petra Turkama, Juha Kaljunen, Tommi Henriksson, Markku Jarvinen, Tomi Saikkonen, Katia Al-Kaisi, Tiina-Maija Bergman, Katja Boutou, Seppo Keranen (Business Finland representative), Minna Herranen, Kimmo Kytösaari, Maria Sillanpää, Riikka Kytösaari. Jaana Tapanainen was elected as FBC Ambassador in Finland and Jaana Räsänen-Pentti (Honorary Chairman, Honorary Member Category representative).

As per the Articles of Association Ambassador of Finland to UAE is Honorary Chairman. The position was hold by Riitta Swan until end of May when the new Ambassador, Marjaana Nissila took over.

Ms. Boutou thanked 2018 Administrative Committee for the cooperation and project coordinator Erika Daintry for her contribution.