Practical experience
Landing a job takes more than talent, it takes action. Demola gives you the chance to tackle real challenges, collaborate with others, and build proof of what you can do even when things are uncertain. By actively participating in a Demola project, you can turn your skills into competencies and concrete experience.
Partnered with Innovative Companies
Our platform, created together with leading companies and professors, connects you to real-world innovation projects. You’ll work as part of a team on an innovation and development project, guided by Demola’s expert facilitators. Participating in a project will give you practical experience and the confidence to deal with complexity in any job.
At Demola, innovation projects are built around real-world project topics co-designed with companies and public-sector organisations. If selected, you'll join an innovation team working to develop meaningful solutions that respond to validated needs.
Our projects tackle complex, relevant problems grounded in industry and societal needs. You'll work in a team to design and demo solutions, benefiting from the insights and findings of previous Demola projects. Most Demola projects last around two months, but the exact duration depends on the programme they are part of.
Each team benefits from expert guidance through coaching sessions and facilitated community events. Demola's facilitators bring years of experience in innovation and adapt their support to match your ambition and commitment. You are expected to take an active role, both individually and as a team.
You'll co-create with other teams and Demola's experts, and validate and test your solutions with real stakeholders to continuously refine your approach. High-performing teams gain access to a network of professionals from Demola's industry partners for further input and exposure.
You'll build in-demand, career-ready skills in creative problem-solving, AI-assisted innovation, project management, international collaboration, and resilience - all while working in an environment that mirrors real innovation practices.
Your team owns the outcomes created during the project. Use them in job interviews, your portfolio, a Master's thesis, or even as the foundation of a startup. In some cases, your work may also earn you academic credit (ECTS) if you are a student.
The impact
Ready to turn your skills into competence? Our claims are backed by feedback from our community of participants and alumni.
Strongly agree (49.3%)
Agree (43.6%)
Neither agree or disagree (5.3%)
Disagree (1.3%)
Strongly disagree (0.5%)
2 272 people took part in the survey.
New skills
65.6%
Valuable work experience
63.9%
New friends
51.5%
Startup ideas
34.4%
International teamwork experience
30.5%
Industry contacts
23.9%
Self-esteem
23.9%
New motivation to study
22.8%
Confidence in career choices
20.3%
Researcher contacts
17.6%
Better position in the labor market
13.5%
Other
1.5%
Based on Q4/2022 survey
If you’re currently studying at or near one of our Demola locations or partner universities, you’re welcome to join a Demola project.
In our partner cities, the projects are also open to graduates and professionals who are exploring new career paths or interested in co-creating and launching startups in the future.
Many alumni have participated in more than one Demola project – the current record is seven. For active alumni, we facilitate further development in their academic studies or future careers:
Explore or fine-tune your Master’s thesis topic through a Demola project and find a potential industry collaborator for your Master’s thesis after the project.
Develop an expert profile that highlights your project contributions, as well as innovation and interpersonal skills. Top-performing participants will have their expert profiles shared and recommended within Demola’s partner network, verifying their skills and proactive mindset.
Build on your project results, connect with like-minded teammates, and use your entrepreneurial mindset to lay the groundwork for a startup.
Get onboarded with Demola
Create a Demola profile.
Browse project in your location and apply to those that interest you.
If you get selected, confirm your seat and start the teamwork.
Apply to one or more projects today!
Jyväskylä, Oulu
Human Beings in the Modern World
How can mobile and XR experiences reveal what is happening right now and in the next few hours around you? Everyday urban life is full of small moments, shifting rhythms, and emerging possibilities that often go unnoticed. This project invites participants to imagine a near future where cities quietly communicate with their citizens through mobile and XR experiences woven into daily routines. The challenge is to explore how extended reality can make the present and the immediate future visible in subtle, meaningful ways. Events about to begin, places filling with energy, moments of calm or movement, and collective urban moods could appear as digital layers in the city, transforming ordinary walks into moments of discovery. The focus is on speculative, experience-driven design rather than utility alone. How might everyday life feel if the city itself could whisper what is unfolding nearby? How could digital presence enhance awareness, curiosity, and connection without overwhelming attention? The outcomes may include futuristic concepts, XR experiences, narrative environments, or prototypes that explore a city that feels alive, anticipatory, and emotionally aware a city that reveals itself moment by moment.
Apply by 29 Mar
Jyväskylä, Tampere
Byte-powered Future
Today’s cars offer fixed features that don’t adapt well to individual preferences. The basic functionalities outside of driving the car has stayed more or less the same for decades. With AI, vehicles could dynamically understand context and user needs to orchestrate complex sequences of actions (lighting, music, climate, suggestions, modes). Also, interacting with in-car systems can be distracting or frustrating, so there’s a clear need to re-think the user experience of cars. How might we enable drivers (and passengers) to create and manage AI-powered experience flows for their car (e.g., a “work mode,” a “relax mode,” a “social mode”)? How might we design natural interaction methods (voice, gesture, gaze, adaptive suggestions) that empower drivers/passengers to configure, customize, and control AI functions safely and intuitively? There’s so much more cars could do than just transport people! In this project we aim to create demonstrations and visualizations of the future “in-car experiences”.
Apply by 26 Apr
Jyväskylä, Oulu, Prague, Tampere
Future of Work
Police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and other emergency professionals operate in high-pressure, unpredictable environments where stress is constant and cumulative. Chronic exposure to stress impacts decision-making, situational awareness, physical health, and long-term mental wellbeing. While consumer wearables (e.g., Garmin, Apple Watch, Whoop) can estimate stress using heart rate variability (HRV), skin conductance, or movement, current solutions focus on individual wellness rather than operational environments and provide retrospective insights rather than actionable real-time intelligence. Emergency organizations need a new generation of wearable-enabled systems that move from passive stress tracking to operational stress intelligence. How might we design wearable technologies and data intelligence systems that: - Measure stress reliably in extreme, real-world conditions - Create a dynamic overview of individual and team stress states - Transform stress data into actionable operational insights - Support both performance and long-term wellbeing In this project, we are aiming to create demonstrations of wearable stress detection tech for professionals in emergency field and concepts to utilize the data in operational, real-time situations to benefit the professionals.
Apply by 26 Apr
Jyväskylä, Oulu, Prague, Tampere
Byte-powered Future
Due to the unstable geopolitical situation globally, landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) remain a critical humanitarian and safety challenge. In post-conflict regions vast areas of land are contaminated with hidden explosives, posing long-term risks to civilians, infrastructure development, agriculture, and economic recovery. Traditional demining is slow, dangerous, and resource-intensive. There is an urgent need for scalable, technology-driven solutions that improve safety, speed, and precision in mine detection and neutralization. This project explores how digital technologies can transform demining operations. What are the novel ways of scanning and detecting UXO’s in vast areas? How might we reduce human exposure for the high-risk areas? How can we enable faster and more scalable demining operations in post-conflict regions? How might we digitally map and create heatmaps of the contaminated areas? Airborne drones are probably the most obvious starting point for the project, but what kind of sensors and technologies could be used to do the actual demining? We are looking to help to solve even a small part of the complex operation of demining. This project aims to build demonstrations in the form of simulations and concept designs.
Apply by 26 Apr
Delhi, Oulu, Pune, Tampere
Value Creators of Tomorrow
In industrial B2B trade, one of the most time-consuming and painful processes is to understand the customer’s wants, needs and restrictions well enough. When talking about huge investments into complex machines and tools, there’s pressure on both sides of the table to meet the requirements and, in the best case scenario, surprise your customer positively. This is why the sales processes are long and tedious, and one might argue, lots of time wasted. How could we use AI-driven tools to gather and consolidate the customer’s needs, wants and specific design details to speed up the process and increase the quality of the first proposals? What kind of new tools would be helpful to map the current situation and the vision of the customer’s future? How might we visualise the offering and highlight the available customisation opportunities? The aim is to create a tool (or set of tools) to speed up the gathering of requirements, wants and needs of the customer, and visualise the potential options for them. The goal is not to create ”online store for complex industrial machines”, but to help with the first step of the purchasing process.
Apply by 26 Apr
Glasgow, Jyväskylä, Oulu, Prague, Tampere
Human Beings in the Modern World
How can a city create a living atmosphere through lighting that reacts to what is happening right now? Urban spaces are shaped not only by buildings and streets, but by light, mood, and movement. However, city lighting is often static and disconnected from the rhythms of everyday life. This Demola project invites students to imagine lighting as living urban art that responds in real time to the city and its people. The challenge is to explore how dynamic lighting installations can reflect the pulse of the city and its events, emotions, environmental changes, and human presence. By translating real-time signals and data such as weather, activity levels, or cultural moments into light, the city itself becomes a constantly evolving artwork. Teams will focus on artistic expression, storytelling, and citizen experience, using light to create atmosphere, provoke emotion, and strengthen a sense of belonging in public spaces. The emphasis is not on technology alone, but on meaning: how light can communicate, invite reflection, and connect people to their surroundings in subtle and beautiful ways. The outcomes may include conceptual artworks, visual narratives, spatial designs, or experiential prototypes that show how responsive lighting can transform everyday urban environments into shared, poetic experiences.
Apply by 26 Apr
See how Demola has helped students around the world succeed in their careers and personal lives.
Master’s Degree student in Research and Innovation in Higher Education
Excellent
20/04/2023
“I enjoy connecting with other people who are not from the same area and field, and creating new things. I think Demola is a very great platform and, since I’m interested in education, I think this is a great idea to help students and other people to learn in a different way and to be closer to the work life.”
Master’s Student in Public and Global Health
Excellent
20/04/2023
“I joined Demola for the third time already, since I enjoy how my personal skills are developing here and I love the feeling of freedom of thoughts, to be able to think, feel and express anything.”
Master’s Student in Sustainable Digitalisation
Excellent
20/04/2023
“I wanted more experience in interdisciplinary project work and real-life, tangible development of solutions with external stakeholders. I also wanted to practice what the design process is like in the real world and how to present novel ideas in an attractive, business- oriented way. And Demola delivered!”
Master’s Degree Student in Engineering and Technology
Excellent
10/06/2022
“In Demola we focused on creating solutions that can and should be applicable and should happen in real life, concrete and implementable solutions that can have an impact. Those type of solutions that go way beyond than just making a new website or a nice social media page.”
Master of Business
Excellent
17/04/2023
“If you have successfully completed the Demola project, it is proof of your passion and that your mindset is inevitably customer-oriented. Demola is definitely an experience I can recommend to all students.”
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