Case Forum Virium: Grano as trusted player in important work

Forum Virium Helsinki is a non-profit innovation company owned by the City of Helsinki. One of the company's largest recent undertakings is the AiRMOUR project, carried out in cooperation with 13 different partners, which focused on promoting sustainable urban aviation through emergency medical services. Grano was responsible for translating the urban aviation guide compiled during the project into a total of six different languages. The original materials in English were also made accessible in accordance with the WCAG guidelines.

Forum Virium aims to make Helsinki the best place to live in the world through various smart solutions and innovations, among other things.

“We work on intelligent transport, in particular, and smart cities and various data solutions and innovations,” says Communications Specialist Paula Kultanen Ribas from Forum Virium Helsinki.

The AiRMOUR project lasted for three years from 2021 to 2023. It was implemented by altogether 13 partners from a total of six European countries. The EU-funded project focused on exploring and strengthening new concepts in urban aviation in emergency medical services applications. During the project, aircraft used for urgent medical assignments, i.e. drones, were tested in Norway, Finland and Germany.

“Our role in Forum Virium is to act as a unifier – an entity that brings cities, companies, research institutes and residents together to cocreate new innovations. We offered the City of Helsinki as a pilot platform, or test bed, for this project, as well. For example, we tested the transport of adrenaline auto-injectors from the mainland to the archipelago with autonomous drones,” Paula says.

Guidebook translated in total of six languages

For several years, Grano has provided Forum Virium with different language and other marketing production services – web material, newsletters, articles, publications, project descriptions, etc. When arranging the competitive tendering process for the best translation partner for the AiRMOUR project, Forum Virium focused on finding a partner that could provide services quickly and reliably.

“We already had some good experiences with Grano before. They had always been reliable and the materials had arrived on time. That was the important thing for us,” Paula emphasises.

Forum Virium was responsible for communications for the entire project. The role of coordinating communications and leading internal and external communications was one of the most important tasks of the entire project. The communications entity was very broad. For example, a dedicated website containing a vast amount of information and various publications was created for the project.

“We worked together with Grano on producing a guidebook on the project, in other words a guide for the integration of urban aviation. The guidebook was produced in a total of six languages: Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Norwegian and Swedish. The original materials in English were also made accessible. The guidebook was published at the final event of the project in Luxembourg,” Paula says.

Success through close co-operation

Despite tight schedules at times, the translation project worked very well. Close cooperation between Forum Virium and Grano throughout the process played a key role. Regular meetings and calls ensured that things progressed on schedule. Paula's own background as a translator was of considerable benefit.

“Because of my background, I knew the breadth of the work. The fact that this field is still so new that there is no established terminology added an extra challenge to the translation work. To support translators, I sought the best terms from different authorities and other parties. Of course, our inhouse project experts read through every translation to make sure that the terminology was correct,” Paula says.

“This was a very demanding and significant project and Grano truly was a trusted player in our corner. For instance, I was at the Smart City Expo in Barcelona, which is the most important event in our field. Even when I was there in the middle of the expo, Grano's contact called and kept me up-to-date. I felt confident, even though there was so little time; I knew Grano was going to make it work. Grano has been an excellent operator in large projects, as they have the resources and capacity to tackle all European languages, whatever we need,” Paula summarises.