Himanen thinks that in the information society we need a radical lack of prejudice, such as he has met in philosophy lessons to children. A critical challenge of the Internet era is the ability to meet the other human being.

Himanen has just published his 'Manuscript for prosperity'.

Pekka Himanen maps out road to Finnish success in coming decade

Professor Pekka Himanen has a clear vision of what should be Finland's goal: a worthy life. How this is to be achieved can be found in his "Manuscript for Prosperity", which he submitted on Wednesday to the leaders of Finnish government parties. Pekka Himanen also has a clear view on the current state of Finland: the country is in a severe crisis.

Finland does not have much time to waste. "In practice, Finland has one year to choose between the manuscript for prosperity or failure in the present decade", he writes, making reference to the fact that big decisions need to be included in the government policy programme to be drawn up after the elections next spring.

      At the present rate, Finland will be one of a number of European old-people's homes which flourishing Asians and Americans come to visit in order to marvel at the past.

Finland can get over the crisis by using the formula in the manuscript, which is as follows: improving working careers + taxation with incentives + renovation of welfare services.

      This is Himanen's positive alternative to the formula which is often put forward in Finland: lengthening working careers + raising taxes + cutting welfare services.

      The formula put forward by Himanen would make it possible to establish economic growth based on an economy founded on creativity.

      The manuscript includes three practical projects supported by two basic pillars which are supposed to guarantee that the country will prosper. (Himanen puts them forward, even though he is afraid that they will distort the main message of his analysis, which comes out only through reading the entire manuscript).

The main projects are a Green Economy of Information and Interaction, Welfare Society Version 2.0, and a Rich multicultural Life.

I will summarise them to avoid overquoting.

Project one: Finland must become a front-runner in clean environmentally and energy technology. (A project that I play a small part in). This project is already underway, having been defined by the Finnish Research Council chaired by the PM in 2008, which set up nearly a dozen SHOKs - a Finnish acronym for Centers of Strategic Excellence. Cleen is the facilitator for the innovation chain of the energy and environment technologies. There are 7 planned consortiums under Cleen, of which 3 were launched in January this year, and one of those is the Smart Grid consortium.

Each consortium under Cleen is made up of Finnish technology corporations (large and small) and research institutions (ditto). The work of each consortium is organized into projects, all of which are intended to end up as RW pilots. IPR is to be shared among all the consortium members.

Project two: Invest in exercise and psychological well-being throughout society. Tax unhealthy foods and give tax breaks to corporations who invest in the welfare of their workers.

Project three: Invest in the Arts and humanities to restore the dignity of life. Donations to arts and sciences to be tax-free.

These are to be supported by a 'new culture of working' and  a 'new culture of learning'.

I cannot find the paper on the intertubez, but it was released today - maybe later in the week.