Fishing for partnerships: ‘King Salmon Project’ brings Tokyo tech startups to Helsinki

By Laurel Colless September 3, 2024
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Rike Wootten is the Tokyo-based American and Chief International Officer at inQs. (inQs Co. Ltd) 

What does Japanese king salmon have to do with sustainable technology and Finland? It’s not a fishing contest, but it does involve competing technologies—and it’s all happening in Helsinki, so there’s plenty of salmon on the menu.

The King Salmon Project, initiated by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike and Helsinki Mayor Juhana Vartiainen, aims to boost technological innovation between the two cities. This partnership includes a late summer visit by five promising Tokyo-based startups to Helsinki. Throughout the week, these startups have been showcasing their technologies to potential partners and exploring prominent local innovation hubs, such as the Maria 01 startup campus and the Slush event team, both central to Helsinki’s thriving startup scene. The program culminated in a competition managed by Deloitte, with the winning startup earning a return trip to Helsinki to further test their solutions under Finland’s challenging winter conditions.

Smart Glass for Smart Cities

Arctic Today spoke to one of the five contenders, inQs (pronounced “inks”), which has developed clear energy-harvesting glass designed for northern climatic conditions. This product, known as SQPV (Solar Quartz Photovoltaic) glass, can capture light from both outdoor and indoor sources, including dim, ambient light. It also offers heat shielding and thermal insulation capabilities that can reduce HVAC energy usage by up to 40%. This innovative glass won the award for Best Innovation in Smart Cities at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Rike Wootten, the Tokyo-based American and Chief International Officer at inQs, noted, “The CES award is a big reason we were able to participate here. Since the award, interest in our product has skyrocketed, with everyone saying, ‘Wow, we’re a smart city!’ or ‘We want to be a smart city, come visit us!’”

Unlike traditional, opaque solar panels, inQ’s energy-harvesting glass is highly transparent, allowing 70% of visible light to pass through while still generating power. Wootten added, “I’m not going to kid you; we don’t make a lot of power. The panels are currently small, about 30 by 30 centimeters, ideal for powering sensors or Bluetooth and long-range LoRa devices.”

Despite its modest power output, the glass’s transparency lends itself to numerous applications for integrating solar cells into smart built environments where energy efficiency is a priority. Potential uses include windows, building facades, information screens in elevators or at bus and tram stops, urban greenhouses, churches, or theaters. Future applications could even extend to smartphone displays.

Makes Good Sense for Sensors

The company asserts that their technology can efficiently harvest and store energy even on overcast and rainy days, or from light reflecting off snow, starlight, or, for a touch of romance, even from the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights.

In northern latitude cities like Helsinki, with extended twilight hours in winter and often as little as six hours of daylight, SQPV’s capability to generate power from low-light conditions is highly suitable for powering small devices like sensors. These sensors can be used in smart buildings to monitor temperature, humidity, air quality, or occupancy, ensuring a reliable, uninterrupted power source is crucial for safe and efficient operations.

Efficiency Meets Insulation

Wootten explains how SQPV glass differs from traditional solar harvesting: “Traditional solar panels mostly capture energy from visible light, but our SQPV glass harvests energy from across the entire light spectrum—from infrared to natural light to ultraviolet—which is key to its heat-trapping insulation properties.”

“In summer, this means that infrared and ultraviolet light, which would normally heat the room, are converted into energy before they can enter,” Wootten explains. “In winter, the glass works in reverse, preventing indoor heat from escaping, which is particularly appealing for use in Finland.”

Design for the Environment

SQPV glass was also designed with environmental sustainability in mind. It uses raw materials that are easy to source and dispose of safely, without harmful end-of-life substances such as gallium arsenide. Wootten quotes inQ’s CEO, Tomoko Ito, an electrical engineer who is part of the team behind the SQPV technology: “You generate just a little bit of power, and you use it right where you generate it. There are no wires, and when you’re done with the product, you simply recycle it.”

As they await the contest results, Wootten and his team, enjoying the Helsinki sunshine and the cheerful company of Finns, are already planning a return in November for Slush—an event celebrated not just for its startup energy but also for the challenging weather it presents. Wootten chuckles, “The Finns rave about Slush, though they admit it’s the bleakest time of year to visit. But on the bright side, that’s exactly the kind of weather we need to prove our concept.”


Laurel Colless is a sustainable business consultant and freelance journalist based in Finland.