North­ern Freeze 2026 — Polar Bear Pitch­ing side event, Oulu

Nel­li Såger – an engi­neer, health-tech start­up founder, and inter­na­tion­al­ly expe­ri­enced keynote speak­er

Nel­li Såger is known for her abil­i­ty to com­bine tech­nol­o­gy, impact, and a deeply human per­spec­tive in trans­form­ing health and health­care. In ear­ly 2025, she was appoint­ed CEO of Ellun Kanat, a lead­ing Nordic trans­for­ma­tion con­sul­tan­cy, where she works at the heart of orga­ni­za­tion­al and soci­etal change.

Pri­or to Ellun Kanat, Nel­li led dig­i­tal devel­op­ment for pub­lic health­care ser­vices at Mehiläi­nen, one of Finland’s largest health­care providers. Before that, she was respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing and com­mer­cial­iz­ing a dig­i­tal­ly sup­port­ed care mod­el for chron­ic dis­eases at Mehiläinen’s sub­sidiary Bee­Healthy. The care mod­el was rec­og­nized by the Finnish Impact Soci­ety as one of the Impact Deeds of the Year in 2022, high­light­ing its proven out­comes and inno­v­a­tive inte­gra­tion of tech­nol­o­gy and care.

Nel­li found­ed the start­up Fifth Cor­ner Inc. in Fin­land, lat­er tak­ing the com­pa­ny on a jour­ney through Lon­don to Sil­i­con Val­ley. In col­lab­o­ra­tion with Jamie Oliv­er, Fifth Cor­ner devel­oped the YOU-app, offer­ing sci­ence-based dig­i­tal pro­grams designed to help users build rou­tines that sup­port health and per­for­mance. Fifth Cor­ner Inc. was the first Finnish com­pa­ny accept­ed into the renowned Sil­i­con Valley–based 500 Star­tups accel­er­a­tor, and its busi­ness was acquired by Hintsa Per­for­mance Oy in 2019.

Mat­ti Tikan­mä­ki, Robot­ics Pio­neer & CEO of Pro­bot Oy

Mat­ti has over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in robot­ics and next-gen­er­a­tion tech­nolo­gies. As the leader of the Oulu-based Pro­bot Oy, he dri­ves a team that brings cre­ativ­i­ty to automa­tion, serv­ing indus­tries from man­u­fac­tur­ing floors to research labs. He lives by the phi­los­o­phy that tech­ni­cal­ly, any­thing is pos­si­ble: “If you can dream it, we’ll fig­ure out how to auto­mate it.

Olli Liina­maa, Nokia

Olli Liinamaa’s role is to push the soci­ety to uti­lize 5G net­works beyond video stream­ing.   He received his MSc degree from Oulu in 90’s, and he has worked for Nokia in var­i­ous posi­tions through­out his career.  Cur­rent­ly he is respon­si­ble for ecosys­tem activ­i­ties bridg­ing research with indus­try, and stim­u­lat­ing ICT com­mu­ni­ty in Oulu region.  Dur­ing recent years he has worked part-time also for Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, build­ing 5G-test­net­work for inno­va­tion exper­i­men­ta­tion.   

Kir­si Locker­bie

Kir­si is a ded­i­cat­ed front­line nurse with 9 years of expe­ri­ence at Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tal. Her clin­i­cal work focus­es on Neu­ro­sciences. She is dri­ven by curios­i­ty and a strong inter­est in new prac­tices, emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies, and future-ori­ent­ed health­care solu­tions. Kir­si val­ues inno­va­tions that ease the dai­ly work­load of health­care pro­fes­sion­als while enhanc­ing patient expe­ri­ence and cre­at­ing more time for what tru­ly mat­ters: peo­ple, con­nec­tion, and mean­ing­ful care. Through­out her career, she has been active­ly involved in devel­op­ing patient care for patients with move­ment dis­or­ders who receive a Deep Brain Stim­u­la­tor.

A dynam­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tor with first-hand expe­ri­ence of inno­va­tion in action, Kir­si is a great choice of a speak­er on dig­i­tal health, smart hos­pi­tals, and the future of patient-cen­tred care. She unique­ly bridges the gap between tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment and every­day clin­i­cal real­i­ty.

Pekka Sim­u­la, Innovestor

Pekkarep­re­sents Innovestor, a lead­ing Nordic invest­ment com­pa­ny spe­cial­iz­ing in early‑stage ven­ture cap­i­tal, with a strong focus on Life Sci­ence and Health. Innovestor active­ly invests in biotech and dig­i­tal health star­tups across the Nordics and Baltics, offer­ing not only cap­i­tal but also deep sci­en­tif­ic and com­mer­cial exper­tise to help founders scale glob­al­ly. By offer­ing ven­ture cap­i­tal, indus­try con­nec­tions, and startup–corporate col­lab­o­ra­tion ser­vices, Innovestor helps health inno­va­tors trans­form break­through sci­ence into impact­ful, scal­able solu­tions that improve patient care and health out­comes. 

Pekka has spent over 25 years with inno­v­a­tive star­tups in health and life sci­ences, includ­ing dig­i­tal­iza­tion of data cap­ture in clin­i­cal tri­als, can­cer radio­ther­a­py, and as founder and CEO in oncol­o­gy and CNS drug devel­op­ment com­pa­nies. He has active­ly sup­port­ed health and life sci­ence teams as men­tor and board mem­ber and IPO’d two com­pa­nies. He loves work­ing with pas­sion­ate founders who want to change the world for the bet­ter.