There is a direct link to corporate responsibility though. Not only does this impact consumers (more ideas developed into products) but it also impacts employees (see the previous note on scientists and developers seeing their ideas come to life) alongside giving more local businesses a helping hand. This initiative can't be underestimated for its potential impact. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out over the next three years. We're hoping to keep tabs on those ideas that get passed out and what happens to them in the next stage of their development cycle.

The innovations released by Nokia are in areas such as environmental and energy-related solutions, location based services and advertising, near field communication, mobile security, health care applications and future internet services, among others. The objective is to evaluate the thousands of available innovations and select around one hundred to be matched with a company which demonstrates the best ability to exploit them, and which is then granted funding for further development and commercialization.

"Speeding up the economy calls for a new degree of openness. We hope that the Nokia Technopolis Innovation Mill sets an example that companies across other sectors will follow. The current economic climate is just right for a critical evaluation of intellectual property portfolios and the release of the innovations that are more suitable for others to exploit," continued Aho.