Finnish Edutainment Startup Revealing The Secrets Of Finnish Creativity

According to the World Happiness Report, Finland is ranked as the happiest country in the world. Finland is also a homeland of Supercell, Nokia, sauna, Santa Claus, Kimi Räikkönen, the greatest NHL-stars at the moment, and many other legendary success stories of our era. The country’s education system has been at the top of PISA-research for years. Finland is a nation of only 5,5 million people, so what makes the Finns so extraordinary in so many different areas? Is there something in the spinach?

A Finnish edutainment (educational entertainment) startup Creative Laboratory is on a mission to find out and reveal all these secrets to the world. The company is launching an online learning platform that focuses on teaching people to be more creative and happier in life. Creative Laboratory offers on-demand classes on curated topics, such as creativity in everyday life, creative skills, career planning, startups, wellbeing, leadership, innovations, and a whole lot more. Currently, the company has published their first class on leading a creative lifestyle and there’s soon a lot more to come. The company is aiming to cover well over 100 classes and topics by the summer of 2019.

The founder and CEO of the company, Sami Mikkola, promises to offer something brand new onto the market of online learning. “Our vision is strongly in the entertainment and lightspeed learning. The world is sometimes very busy and so full of information, that it’s very hard for people to find any new and fresh insight or inspiration. Our aim is to create classes that are human-centered, easy on schedules, affordable and fun. The most effective way to learn is when learning is fun, it concentrates on positivity, and encourages you to develop your own strengths. The way I see our position, we have a unique chance to show the world how we do things here in the Nordics. We truly have something very different in here for the world to learn from.”

The company is handpicking the class instructors amongst the normal people, from the unique thinkers and creators. The classes are guaranteed to be fresh, insightful, and to include a lot of that famous “out-of-the-box”-thinking.

Although the company is focusing on showing the ideas of the Finnish talents to the world, that will not be the end-goal. “We’re aiming to attract talents from all over the world to teach their own unique ways of thinking and live in this world. There’s never too much inspiration in life, we’d love to share the magic as wide as possible. And for example, small talk is something that might have to be taught by someone not-Finnish”, tells Mikkola, laughing.

As a contradiction to one of the latest news pieces on Finland – the nation’s top hobby is not raking the woods. And most likely there will not be an e-course on that either.

What else has Finland produced, TOP10:

– Oura Ring, self-tracking device loved by people around the world from Prince Harry to Jack Dorsey.
– Gaming and entertainment company Rovio, known from Angry Birds.
Supercell, the makers on Clash of Clans, Hey Day! and Clash Royale.
– Nokia, the leading mobile phone company in the 90’s and early 2000’s.
– A line of NHL superstars, such as Teemu Selänne, Saku Koivu, Patrik Laine, Pekka Rinne and many, many others
– MySQL database, which is used by YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and many other high-profile websites and acquired by Oracle, was developed by Michael “Monty” Widenius together with Swedish David Axmark
– Text-message, SMS, was invented by Finnish Matti Makkonen and the first SMS’s were sold and sent in Finland
– Economist, MIT professor and Economics Nobel Prize 2016 laureate Bengt Holmström
– Former President, Martti Ahtisaari, was awarded with Nobel Peace Prize in 2008
– Slush, the world’s leading startup event & global community with more than 20.000 attendees all around the world

Online learning market is constantly growing. Companies are focusing on helping their employees to perform better at work. One of the best ways to lure in talent is to offer learning tools for them. It is a no-brainer, that when the staff is happy and produces their best possible work, the company is doing great. Check out Creative Laboratory courses on their website.