OUR STORY
We, the CYF Digital team, came together in 2015 around a volunteer project aimed at helping integrate asylum seekers into the Finnish environment. This effort evolved into a company that now helps people find the best places to live and establish themselves in their new communities.
Our original project won the Facebook Global Digital Challenge, organized by Facebook and the US State Department and held in Washington, D.C. in February 2016. This victory and the positive feedback we received inspired us to continue our work by forming a company committed to creating solutions to social challenges. One of our first projects developed in cooperation with the University of Turku was a digital service to help first-year university students to better integrate into their new study environments. Since then, we have won several other innovation contests both in Finland and abroad. You can read more about them in our acknowledgements.
Our newest solution is Know Your Hoods® neighborhood portal that won an innovation contest organized by the Regional Council of Southwest Finland in which the goal was to develop solutions that used open data to highlight the appeal of neighborhoods and municipalities. Following this achievement, development of the first version of Know Your Hoods® continued in partnership with the City of Turku, the Regional Council of Southwest Finland and Turku Business Region. Development work continues, and we look forward to adding new municipalities and neighborhoods to the service. Could your municipality or neighborhood be next?
OUR SERVICES
A lot of expectations are associated with finding a new place to live. Moving to a new place can create positive new beginnings and a wealth of new opportunities. These can come from new studies, a new job or starting a family, for example. A new neighborhood can offer new friends, new hobbies, and more comprehensive services. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it?
However, we know that moving also brings many challenges. Can I find enough information about my new city? How do I find free-time activities I will like? How can I become friends with my new neighbors? I won’t be seen as an outsider, will I? Poor integration may lead to loneliness or even social exclusion. Consequently, loneliness can have significant costs for society.
Everyone should be able to enjoy their new home city or neighborhood. Our digital services are developed to help migrants choose a new city, get to know their new home, and integrate into the local society. Read more about our services below.
Fresh new way to highlight the appeal of neighborhoods and municipalities!
Know Your Hoods® neighborhood search engine is a portal that helps movers to find the perfect municipality and neighborhood to settle in. It allows you to compare different cities and neighborhoods in order to find the best place for you. Know Your Hoods® also helps residents find information about their own neighborhood and services more easily and participate in discussions about and development of the neighborhood. The first stage is developed in partnership with the City of Turku, the Regional Council of Southwest Finland and Turku Business Region.
Explore Know Your Hoods® on hoods.fi. Tell us which municipalities and neighborhoods you would most like the service to show!
Main functionalities and benefits for users:
Search function
Search for neighborhoods suitable for your needs using different criteria
City information
Get to know neighborhoods through many kinds of information: stats, text, images, and maps showing neighborhood services
Co-creation with residents
Write and read residents’ reviews about the hood
Easy and fast mobile service for migrants to get to know their new home city, find interesting events, and make new friends!
Using our integration app, migrants can build a positive and caring image of their new home city or organization. Efficient integration will enhance wellbeing and decrease costs caused by marginalization. Our customizable app helps users in their everyday lives and builds an up-to-date brand for the city or organization.
Main functionalities and benefits for users:
Targeted information
Read relevant and targeted info about your new home city
Events
Get to know new people through interesting events
Map
Find the most important places on the map and tag favourite locations
TESTIMONIALS
“CYF supports our goals to make Turku the best student city in Finland. The team tailors content for our students per their needs, so that they can find the information they need about their new home city.”
- Kalervo Väänänen, University of Turku
Know Your Hoods is a neighborhood search engine that helps movers find the perfect municipality and neighborhood to settle in. It also helps residents to find new information and stories about their own neighborhood.
"CYF's expertise and ideas helped us think about the implementation of our service and our customers' needs in a practical way. We can warmly recommend development and design work with CYF."
- Kirsi Korhonen, International Fox Agency
Can 5G and VR technologies lower the threshold for young people to start a new hobby? We conducted a trial with the City of Turku, Elisa, and middle-schoolers to find the answer to this question. With the VR world's help, teenagers can get familiar with recreational activities in an exciting way.
Is a new mobile service necessary, and what would be its main content? In this workshop, we went through different users' needs and formed the wireframe version trough prioritization, thus creating a shared vision for the future Mobiililuotsi-application.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Winner of Elisa 5G Hackathon 2019 at SHIFT, Turku

Winner of Service Innovation at University StartUp World Cup 10/2018, Copenhagen

Winner of BusinessUp Acceleration Program, Spring 2018, Turku Science Park

Winner of the innovation contest Enhancing the attractiveness of Southwest Finland 11/2017

Recognized by AACSB as one of the 35 Innovations That Inspire 2/2017, New Orleans

Invited to present integration service at the UN General Assembly week 9/2016, NY

Winner of the Facebook Global Digital Challenge in Washington 2/2016
TEAM
Susanna Lahtinen
CEO, Sales
susanna[at]cyf.fi
+358 40 705 1991
Soile Puranen
Technology & Projects
soile[at]cyf.fi
Katerina Panina
R&D
katerina[at]cyf.fi
Hanna Aho
Administration
hanna[at]cyf.fi
Ninna Lehtinen
Marketing
Hassan Maskati
Junior Full Stack Developer
Juho Vainio
Technology Advisor
Petri Kalske
Business Advisor
Join our team?
We are always eager to hear from individuals who get excited about the same topics as we do! So if you are looking for an internship, topic for your final thesis or not sure what, but our company brings smile to your face and butterflies in your stomach, please send us a message to info[at]cyf.fi with subject line “I want to be a CYF member!”. Include in your message short description of who you are, why you want to join our team and what would you like to do, also including your CV. We’ll get back to you asap.
CONTACT US
We would love to hear from you and see how we can help
Call us on
+358 40 705 1991
Postal address
Tykistökatu 4 B
c/o SparkUp
20520 Turku, Finland
Email us at
info[at]cyf.fi
@CYF_Digital
MEDIA
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The hackathon hacked solutions to loneliness and social isolation using 5G technologies, with the top three teams competing in the final: Know Your Hoods, T34M and CareBot, with innovations concerning immigrant integration assisted with a digital platform, AR technology for learning practical skills at home, and emotion recognition with AI, respectively. The winner, Know Your Hoods, received a 10,000 euro prize.
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Know Your Hoods helps you to find the most fitting neighbourhood for you to move to. You can also use the service to learn more about the neighbourhood you live in and to get to know all the fascinating places and services nearby.
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An award-winning start-up, Choose Your Future, is publishing Know Your Hoods – search engine for neighborhoods in hoods.fi on July 11th to help people find the most suitable neighborhood to call their hoods.
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First price went to the Choose Your Future startup and the second price went to the Eduten startup. Congratulations to all teams!