Friskus: Digital infrastructure bringing people together

With public health and wellbeing in mind, Friskus aims to develop sustainable and supportive local communities across Norway. The digital interaction platform lowers the threshold for people to get active and be included, as well as making signing up to volunteer and help others easy.

Social entrepreneur Sigrid Nedkvitne left her job in the municipal health and welfare sector to set up Friskus, and it was a risk that paid off. Seven years on, Friskus has expanded to 110 local municipalities, and Nedkvitne has been named one of Norway’s top 50 women in tech two years in a row. “Both at work and in my personal life, I saw a clear need for the development of a platform for activity and cooperation,” she says.

With ten years of management experience in the public sector, Nedkvitne had a thorough understanding of the issues Friskus aims to alleviate. Social exclusion is an issue of great concern. A lot of people feel lonely and isolated, especially those not in employment or education. “Community and having a sense of belonging is important to our society. It’s about fundamental human needs,” says Nedkvitne. “We have knowledge of what we need as human beings, and it’s time to take action to ensure everyone in Norway has opportunities to have those basic needs of being seen and included met.”

Founder Sigrid Nedkvitne

While there may be opportunities to get involved locally, it doesn’t do much good if people can’t easily find and access them. For Nedkvitne, understanding the needs of local municipalities was a great advantage in creating a user-friendly digital solution that brings local events, activities, and volunteer opportunities together. “We designed it with usability in mind – simple, straightforward, and visually engaging. It was built and developed with the input and support of people across the country,” she explains.

Friskus offers an overview of everything going on in the local community. Organisations can share planned events and activities, volunteers can sign up to help, and citizens can find things they’d like to take part in. “It was important to have an ad-free platform and without algorithms controlling what people can see,” Nedkvitne adds. “It was developed from the perspective of public health and should contain only useful information that people need.”

Friskus is designed to be as simple and seamless as possible, with everything in one place – making it easier for people to help and gain access to help, as well as simplifying planning, coordination, and reports for organisers. As the digital platform simplifying connections between people expands across Norway, the support of local municipalities is crucial in tackling the issue of social exclusion.

Friskus.com:

• Free for all Norwegian citizens
• Free for voluntary organisations
• For citizens: a tool to discover local events and groups and receive support and equipment
• For organisations: a tool for making events and volunteer assignments accessible and coordinating them
• For municipalities: a tool for dialogue with citizens as well as internal and external collaboration
• To date, volunteer organisations and municipalities have distributed NOK 60 million to children and young people’s leisure activities through Friskus

Web: www.friskusas.no
Facebook: Friskus
Instagram: @friskusnorge