At the moment, the enormous exhibition area is still a teeming construction site, but in less than a year it will be full of the best inventions, latest technology, glitter, light effects and a huge number of people from all over the world. The World Expo takes place from 20 October 2020 to 10 April 2021. The aim is to organise the greatest and most beautiful Expo in the world – the World’s Greatest Show.
One of the Expo participants is Finland, with a pavilion that showcases a large number of leading companies. Granlund will be the only Finnish real estate and construction design and consultancy company at the Expo.
Although the exhibition area itself and the Finnish pavilion are physically still construction sites, the digital twin of the pavilion is already running in the Granlund Manager software. The digital twin helps to manage the data related to the property. Granlund’s expertise is also utilised in consultancy related to the pavilion’s technical building service plans ordered by Business Finland.
Expo 2020 Dubai is the first World Expo organised in the Persian Gulf countries and in the Arab countries in general. Dubai is a Persian Gulf business hub and is also called the Middle East’s Hong Kong. According to Business Finland, visibility at this event is important for Finland as Finland and the United Arab Emirates have strong trade relations to be fostered.
More than 190 countries have already registered in the World Expo and approximately 25 million visits are expected during the six months, wherein 70% of them will come from outside the United Arab Emirates.
Innovations and snow castles
The World Expo was organised for the first time in 1851 in London. After that, there have been more than 100 World Expos, with International des Expositions deciding on their organisation. The theme selected for Expo 2020 Dubai is “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future”.
The design of the Finnish pavilion has influences from both Finland and the Arab World. The name of the Finnish pavilion is ”Snow Cape”, the exhibition is called The Symbiosis. The main theme will be ”Sharing Future Happiness”.
Other themes include the circular economy, sustainable solutions and innovations. The pavilion is a spacious “snow castle” full of light, accessed by crossing a body of water and entering an Arab tent. Read more about the Finnish pavilion on Business Finland’s website.
The main partners for the pavilion are KONE, Konecranes and Outotec. In addition to Granlund, the Key Partners include, among others, Wärtsilä Corporation, Fiskars Corporation, Nokia Corporation, Fortum Corporation, Isku Oy, Collaprime Ltd, Metso Corporation, Valmet Corporation, Finnair Plc, iLOQ Ltd, Genelec Oy, Black Donuts Engineering Inc., Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, Education Finland (with 20 companies) and the Smart Nuclear Energy Solutions group consisting of Fortum, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK), STUK International Ltd, Posiva Solutions Oy and FinNuclear.
The Exhibition Partners are Halton Group Ltd, Liana Technologies Oy, Evergreen Farm Oy, Marinetek Oy, Naava Oy, Finnish Water Forum, Business Oulu, Stone from Finland, tourism companies led by Visit Finland and health care companies within the Health comes from Finland programme.
