The Nordic Metaverse Day, organized by Business Finland as part of the Osaka World Expo 2025, brought together leading industry professionals from the Nordics and Japan to explore the role of extended reality in the future of urban development and defense.
Our XR experts Narmeen Marji and Erson Halili, along with Päivi Keränen, Project Manager at Metropolia’s Smart and Creative City innovation hub, participated in the event to showcase our latest initiative, the Immersive Sustainability Lab, a collaborative platform focused on XR-driven sustainability solutions. Keep reading to find out, how their human-centered keynote speech contributed to conversations about technology, the importance of magination, and sustainable urban living!
Text by Narmeen Marji, Erson Halili and Päivi Keränen
The Nordic Pavilion at Osaka World Expo 2025 buzzed with energy on May 30th as industry leaders, innovators, and visionaries gathered for the Nordic Metaverse Day. Among the impressive lineup of speakers showcasing cutting-edge XR and AI technologies, we had the opportunity to represent Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki XR Center and present our Immersive Sustainability Lab -collaboration platform, which centers around a simple yet powerful question: “What if?”
Setting the stage: Tokyo connections
Our journey to Osaka began a week earlier in Tokyo, where meaningful collaborations were forged that would enhance connections between Finnish and Japanese innovation ecosystems. At Tokyo Innovation Base, one of Japan’s premier acceleration hubs, we explored pathways for Finnish startups to access Japanese markets. The visit to Sakura DEEPTECH Shibuya opened doors to specialized support for deep technology ventures, while our meeting with Cluster, Japan’s leading metaverse platform, proved particularly fruitful.
Cluster’s recent pivot toward industrial metaverse solutions, focusing on urban development and digital twins, aligned well with our work at the Helsinki XR Center and the immersive sustainability lab initiative. Together with Business Finland and Metaverse Finland (MEFI), we laid the groundwork for a global pilot project, planning an MoU that aims to bridge Finnish and Japanese expertise in the built environment industry.
These pre-expo connections were not just networking opportunities, they were the foundation for establishing exchange programs that will allow startups from both nations to tap into each other’s markets, fostering an ecosystem where innovation knows no borders.
The Nordic Metaverse Day: Technology with purpose
The event itself was a showcase of Nordic innovation at its finest. The morning session on “Industrial Transformation & Defence” featured impressive demonstrations from Distance Technologies’ glasses-free mixed reality systems and Nokia’s Real-time Extended Reality Multimedia (RXRM) solutions. 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, our latest work at the Helsinki XR Center.
What delighted us was the caliber of attendees, 70–80 professionals representing top industries, all seeking tangible solutions for tomorrow’s urban challenges. The presentations were undoubtedly informative, showcasing remarkable technological capabilities that could advance how we design, build, and manage cities.
Japanese innovation leadership
The day was enriched by significant contributions from Japanese industry leaders, showcasing the depth of innovation happening across both nations. Kawasaki Heavy Industries, represented by Vice President and CTO Hiroshi Nakatani, delivered a compelling keynote on how the defense sector is leveraging XR and AI to revolutionize situational awareness and human-machine interaction.
NVIDIA Japan’s Masao Nakane presented insights on AI-empowered smart cities and their potential for creating more sustainable urban futures. The panel discussions were particularly engaging, with Dr. Hideaki Watanabe from the Defense Technology Foundation joining Nordic speakers to explore the future applications of XR and AI in defense applications.
These presentations highlighted the sophisticated technological landscape in Japan and the natural synergies between Japanese precision engineering and Nordic human-centered design philosophies. The collaborative spirit was evident throughout, setting the stage for the meaningful partnerships that would emerge from the day’s discussions.
A different kind of story
Yet amid the technical demonstrations and economic projections, our presentation took a deliberately different approach. Rather than leading with technology specifications or market potential, we began with a story, a narrative about imagination itself.
The presentation opened in the year 2070, painting a picture of environmental collapse where children grow up never seeing real trees, where algorithmic governance has replaced human connection, and where cities have become efficient but soulless data-generating machines. This wasn’t science fiction, it was a trajectory we’re already on, shaped by our collective failure of imagination.
But here’s where the Nordic approach shines: we didn’t stop at the problem. We pivoted to possibility, showing how the same narrative could unfold differently in 2070, with regenerative infrastructures and technology serving humanity rather than replacing it.
The human-centered difference
While many presentations throughout the day focused on the technical capabilities of digital twins, AI optimization, and data-driven city management, our Immersive Sustainability Lab approach emphasized something equally crucial: the humans these technologies are meant to serve.
We highlighted how Nordic values, sustainability, public trust, accessibility, social equity, provide a different lens for technological development. Finland and Japan share remarkable parallels in their reverence for nature, balance, humility, and collective responsibility. These are not just cultural touchstones; they’re design principles for better cities.
Our approach reflects a broader conversation happening in the smart cities field. While technological optimization, efficiency metrics, and economic models are important components of urban development, we believe there’s equal value in asking deeper questions about the human experience: how do we ensure that advanced urban technologies genuinely serve residents’ wellbeing and quality of life?
This isn’t an either/or proposition; cities need both technical excellence and human-centered design. The Nordic approach emphasizes integrating these perspectives from the start, ensuring that as we build smarter cities, we’re also building more livable, equitable, and sustainable communities.
Beyond the technical: Imagination as infrastructure
Our presentation resonated because it addressed what many in the room felt but hadn’t articulated, that we’re facing not just a technical challenge, but a crisis of imagination. The prevalence of dystopian futures in our cultural narratives reflects deeper anxieties about current urban trajectories.
The Immersive Sustainability Lab represents a different approach: using XR, AI, and emerging technologies not just to optimize existing systems, but to help communities imagine and prototype radically better futures. Through mixed reality urban data visualization, public participation in city co-design, and immersive “what if” scenarios, we’re not just building smarter cities, we’re building our capacity to imagine better ones.
Global collaboration, local values
The response was immediate and overwhelming. Throughout the day and in follow-up conversations, attendees approached us with collaboration ideas, partnership proposals, and invitations to extend our work into new contexts. The full house remained engaged throughout our presentation, and the discussions continued long after we left the stage.
This enthusiasm reflects something important: while the world needs advanced urban technologies, it hungers even more for approaches that honour human dignity, cultural values, and ecological wisdom. The Nordic model, with its emphasis on public trust, environmental stewardship, and social equity, offers a compelling alternative to purely market-driven or efficiency-focused smart city initiatives.
Looking forward: 2025-2027 international roadmap
Our vision extends far beyond a single conference or even a single country. The partnerships forged in Tokyo and the connections made in Osaka are building blocks for a 2025-2027 international roadmap that includes:
- Global flagship pilots in Finland, Japan, Spain, and the USA
- XR × AI solutions for urban, cultural, and ecological transformation
- Immersive foresight labs for policy-making, education, and public participation
- Cultural and environmental preservation through mixed reality experiences
The MoU with Cluster represents just the beginning. Exchange programs with Tokyo Innovation Base and Sakura DEEPTECH Shibuya will create pathways for Finnish startups to access Japanese markets while bringing Japanese innovation back to the Nordic ecosystem.
Designing Futures Worth Living
As we concluded our presentation with the words “The future isn’t something we enter. It’s something we design. Let’s design it well,” the response confirmed what we suspected: the world is ready for a more human-centered approach to urban technology.
The Nordic Metaverse Day showcased impressive technical capabilities, but it also revealed a deeper truth. Cities aren’t problems to be solved through optimization alone, they’re communities to be nurtured, cultures to be celebrated, and futures to be imagined together.
Our work at Metropolia’s Helsinki XR Center and the Immersive Sustainability Lab represents Finland’s contribution to this global conversation. We’re not just exporting technology; we’re sharing an approach that puts human flourishing at the center of technological innovation.
As we continue to expand the reach of Finnish innovation, we carry with us the conviction that the best urban futures will be those we dare to imagine, and build, together.
Narmeen Marji is an XR Expert, Architect, Urban Planner and Designer. Erson Halili is an XR Expert specializing in Service Innovation and Experience Design. Päivi Keränen is a Team Leader and Project Manager at Metropolia’s Smart and Creative City Innovation Hub focusing on Design for Regenerative Cities. Together, through the Immersive Sustainability Lab collaboration platform, they work to advance sustainable development through human-centered immersive technologies.
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