Hämeenlinna Strengthens Preparedness and Resilience Through BeScaled Collaboration

Text published 26.06.2026

The City of Hämeenlinna has joined BeScaled pre-accelerator as an ecosystem partner. The collaboration aims to identify and develop new solutions for preparedness, service continuity and societal functional capacity. The programme responds to a growing need to develop dual-use technologies that strengthen society’s resilience to crises.

The city as an evaluator of solutions and a development environment
Hämeenlinna takes part in the programme as an evaluator of solutions and a potential development environment. The city brings a perspective on the practical needs related to crisis resilience, critical infrastructure and service continuity.

“Cities play a central role in safeguarding society’s functional capacity,” says Niklas Lähteenmäki, Director of Vitality at the City of Hämeenlinna. “BeScaled gives us the opportunity to help develop solutions before they reach the market — and to ensure that they meet real needs and the realities of everyday life.”

The BeScaled process helps the selected companies understand the particular features of demanding markets — such as regulation and procurement processes — and validate their solutions directly with end users. In doing so, it opens up concrete opportunities for companies looking to develop their products and services for the preparedness and crisis-resilience markets.

Situational awareness and proactive leadership are strengthened
In the BeScaled programme, the dual-use potential of startups is assessed in close collaboration with end users. This enables faster adoption of solutions and a better fit for real-world situations. Through the collaboration, Hämeenlinna gains visibility into new technologies — such as data, analytics and situational-awareness solutions — that support proactive decision-making. This strengthens the city’s ability to identify risks early and respond in changing situations. The collaboration supports Hämeenlinna’s comprehensive security objectives at a concrete level.

Towards stronger resilience
The BeScaled collaboration supports Hämeenlinna’s strategic goal of developing a city that is safe, functionally capable and able to meet the challenges of the future. Through the collaboration, Hämeenlinna takes part in building solutions that strengthen the resilience of society as a whole. At the same time, the programme supports the strengthening of Finnish–Estonian cooperation in the development of resilience and security technologies.

“Through BeScaled, we gain access to a fast-evolving European ecosystem and to new solutions,” says Lähteenmäki.

BeScaled is a pre-accelerator for early-stage Finnish and Estonian technology companies. It helps companies developing civilian technologies assess how well their solutions fit defence, security and resilience markets.