The prestigious conference of the Service Design Network will gather world class service design cases, talents, innovators and other players. It aims to bring wider visibility to service design with the theme for the 2024 conference being “Designing for Impact: Strategic Leadership with Service Design”.

With more than 900 participants, the Global Conference has been organised for 16 years since 2008 and took place in cities around the world. The latest gathering in 2023 was hosted both in Berlin and online. In 2024, the event in Helsinki will be produced by the Global Service Design Network along with its local chapter SDN Finland in co-operation with Finnish designers association Ornamo Art and Design Finland. The conference is supported by conference’s partners from academia to business.

Eliisa Sarkkinen, Head of SDN Finland and Lead Service Designer at Siili Solutions, is happy to have the conference finally in Finland. “The event will be a hub of creativity and a place to look into the future of our innovative capabilities. In SDGC24, we want to embrace design enthusiasts from early practitioners to global decision makers connecting tech and design, strategy and business”, Sarkkinen states.

The conference theme sets the stage for exciting keynotes, workshops, and networks about the role and impact of service design and how creativity is crucial for the service business. The stage will welcome all world class service design cases, innovations, businesses, and talents.

Finnish tech-driven companies are strong users of design

Salla Heinänen, Executive Director at Ornamo Art and Design Finland, has followed the growth and transformation of the design scene in Finland with positivity. The turnover in 2021 of the Finnish design sector was €15.4 billion euros, with an impressive 2/3 share in digital design. The development that has occurred in the software business is strongly linked to the digitalisation of society and business. “Design is based on human understanding, and as a field of expertise, its potential as part of the digital economy is widely identified in Finnish companies. Thanks to our strong tech-intensive culture, Finland is one of the forerunners in service design”, states Heinänen. 

Service Design Network in a nutshell

The Service Design Network (SDN), founded in 2004, is the leading non-profit institution for expertise in service design and a driver of global growth, development, and innovation within the practice. Through national and international events, online and print publications and coordination with academic institutions, our member-based network connects multiple roles.

 www.service-design-network.org

Ornamo Art and Design Finland in a nutshell

Finland’s largest multidisciplinary design community, Ornamo, advances the profession of designers and promotes the role of design in society. Founded in 1911, Ornamo has 3,000 members.

 www.ornamo.fi

Stay tuned for more updates!