16th FRUCT Conference: Practical Information

The 16th conference of the Open Innovations Association FRUCT provides an unmatched collaboration and education forum for all matters Finnish-Russian technological and educational cooperation in ICT. The conference brings together the best and brightest that the Regional communities have to offer, including core developers, administrators, end users, business executives, and operations experts - the best technical talent and the decision makers and industry experts who are involved in the community.

The conference is targeted to scale up cross-border cooperation between ICT experts and mobile developers from Russian and Finland, with particular focus on Oulu region and Republic of Karelia. The conference is organized by Center for Internet Excellence (University of Oulu), Petrozavodsk State University and Open Innovations Association FRUCT. The conference program consists of 5 full working days. The first 2 days are reserved for trainings and intensive courses.

The main conference program starts on October 29th and continue for 3 days. The program consists of invited lectures provided by industrial and academic experts, community presentations selected from the open call and demos given by the regional groups, invited FRUCT teams and selected from the open call. The key priority of this conference is community development so a lot of attention will be given to creation of cozy environment and possibilities for social interaction.

We warmly welcome you to take part in the conference, use this opportunity to your research finding and development results, find new friends and partners, and help in development of the regional ICT research and education ecosystem. Thanks to our sponsors, all participants can enjoy free registration to the event. The conference is supported by Karelia ENPI projects KA322 and KA432 co-funded by the European Union, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Finland.

Practical information for participants

Oulu is located in the northern part of the Baltic Sea, about 200 km from the Arctic Circle. It has an image as an active city that is prosperous for business, and has also good public services, safe atmosphere and diverse natural environment. With an interdisciplinary university, many public and private research institutes and international corporations, Oulu is a university, science and technology city. It is the most populous city in Northern Finland (>190K inhabitants) and the sixth most populous city in the country. See Map of Oulu.

Transportation
Airlines - when arriving in Helsinki-Vantaa airport, 55-minute connecting flight to Oulunsalo Airport is one possibility to take. Please visit: www.finnair.com, www.norwegian.com, www.flysas.com.

Train - in case of travelling by train, first you need to take a bus number 61 to Tikkurilla, leaving every 10-20 minutes (24/7) from the Helsinki-Vantaa airport. The bus goes directly to the Helsinki railway station (cca 20-25 min.) From Helsinki to Oulu, there are seven trains a day (cca. 70 EUR, time: ~7 hours). For timetables, prices and tickets, please visit the website of Finnish Railways. If you have taken the train from Helsinki you will be arriving in downtown Oulu. VR has connecting trains with St.-Petersburg and Moscow directions.

Bus - Bus number 9 runs between the airport and the city center every 30 minutes. Time schedules, bus routes in Oulu can be found here. Bus ticket from airport to city center is 4.70e. A single ticket in the area of the city costs EUR 3,30. For further details please check here.

Taxi - The trip from the airport to downtown Oulu takes about 20 minutes. From Oulu Airport to Linnanmaa (University) is about 22 km and costs appr. 32 euros (1-2 passenger). For example you can contact Oulun Aluetaksi Oy (Oulu area local taxi Ltd)

Map of Linnanmaa: http://www.oulu.fi/kartat/Linnanmaa_2010_English.pdf (here is newer version in Finnish). Instructions to the campus map:

• Number 4 - CIE, Center for Internet Excellence (C-door, Faculty of Humanities, 2^ndfloor)
• Number 2 - Restaurant Snellmania
• Number 8 - Restaurant Julinia

Visitors by car: Parking close to the entrance of the main library or the main parking lot at Erkki Koiso-Kanttila street