The Finnish approach to smart city development sparked interest in Japan – Metropolia's new collaboration platform, Immersive Sustainability Lab, featured at Osaka World Expo 2025
As part of the Osaka World Expo 2025, The Nordic Metaverse Day brought together Nordic and Japanese industry professionals to discuss the role of extended reality in future urban development and defense. Metropolia University of Applied Sciences presented its collaboration platform, the Immersive Sustainability Lab, which emphasizes the importance of sustainability and collaboration in smart city planning.
Nordic and Japanese experts and business professionals gathered at the Nordic Circle pavilion at the Osaka World Expo 2025 on May 30th, to share their experiences in utilizing extended reality (XR) in smart city development and defense. The goal was to foster new business opportunities between Finnish and Japanese companies and innovation clusters.
The Helsinki XR Center and the Smart and Creative City innovation hub of Metropolia University of Applied Sciences participated in Business Finland’s Nordic Metaverse Day, highlighting the new Immersive Sustainability Lab platform, which focuses on sustainability innovations driven by emerging technologies.
The Nordic Metaverse Day: How emerging technologies are shaping future cities
More than 70 professionals from the fields of industry, defense, and sustainable urban development participated in the event. Throughout the day, attendees explored future perspectives of new technologies and heard engaging presentations and showcases from key players.
The morning session on "Industrial Transformation & Defence" featured demonstrations from Distance Technologies' glasses-free mixed reality systems and Nokia's Real-time Extended Reality Multimedia (RXRM) solutions and 5G 360 camera.
The afternoon's focus on "Smart Cities, Sustainability and Future Societies" brought together presentations from Younite's AI-driven digital twins, Göteborg & Co's inclusive cityverse project, and last but not least, the Helsinki XR Center’s new Immersive Sustainability Lab -platform.
"We're not just building smarter cities, we're building our capacity to imagine better ones."
The keynote speech by Metropolia’s XR Experts Narmeen Marji and Erson Halili encouraged participants to reflect on the kind of future we want to build with new technologies, and emphasized the power of imagination, positive future visions, and collaboration. Their presentation brought a crucial human-centered perspective to the otherwise technology-focused discussion and sparked significant interest, especially among the Japanese participants.
"Presentations about recent developments and future vision of the XR and AI reminded us, once again, that we should put humans and biodiversity at the center when designing new technologies", reminds Halili.
Launched to the public in November 2024, Metropolia’s new research, development and innovation (RDI) platform, the Immersive Sustainability Lab, represents a more sustainable and human-centered approach to integrating emerging technologies into smart city planning. Its purpose is to help communities envision better futures by encouraging them to ask, "What if?"
"The Immersive Sustainability Lab was built on this fundamental principle and that gives us a competitive edge in the global stage. Our strength lies in a multidisciplinary approach where our experts provide us with valuable insights that put humans and the planet at the core, going beyond technological innovations", says Halili.
"We're not just building smarter cities, we're building our capacity to imagine better ones", Marji adds.
Sustainability and inclusion at the forefront – Metropolia fosters future city innovation
Metropolia’s Smart and Creative City innovation hub’s Regenerative Urban Development research and development program aims to strengthen citizen participation and engagement by utilizing new technologies to support the sustainability transition. The Immersive Sustainability Lab plays a key role in advancing this goal.
"Having worked in urban development for many years, it was inspiring to explore the work being done in Japan, where the scale is significantly larger than in Finland. What stood out during the event day, however, was not only the interest in our approaches but also the enthusiasm for collaboration in technology development and related research", summarizes Päivi Keränen from the Smart and Creative City innovation hub.
More information:
Erson Halili
XR Specialist, Helsinki XR Center, Metropolia University of Applied Sciences
erson.halili [at] metropolia.fi (erson[dot]halili[at]metropolia[dot]fi)
Päivi Keränen
Project Manager, Smart and Creative City innovation hub, Metropolia University of Applied Sciences
paivi.keranen [at] metropolia.fi (paivi[dot]keranen[at]metropolia[dot]fi)