Interview with Kari Kivelä, Co-Founder of Oura Health, FIN

The idea behind Oura is simple: To help people reach their full potential, be their best selves and achieve something that's a struggle for millions around the world — a good night's sleep. Getting enough rest is the key to staying healthy and balanced; it helps avoid symptoms of prolonged stress, and prevent chronic diseases caused by poor sleep and sleep deprivation.Oura is the first wearable available for consumers that shows how your body responds to your lifestyle by analyzing your sleep, activity levels, daily rhythms and the physiological responses in your body. The second generation ring and app offer advanced sleep tracking features and daily guidance that help you align your lifestyle, activities and sleep habits to your natural circadian rhythm – the 24-hour genetic clock that regulates the functions of the human body. Improving sleep and better aligning to our natural circadian rhythm helps us wake up refreshed, which in turn can help us perform better at work, improve athletic performance, and live life to the fullest.Oura’s guidance is based on the user’s personal sleep and activity metrics, and physiological responses tracked over weeks and months. The app guides users to find their optimal bedtime and identify habits that can help improve sleep. It also provides personalized activity guidance. Oura’s nighttime body temperature tracking correlates with oral thermometer measurements, so it can also help predict changes in your health and recovery. It can also be used for example for monitoring menstrual cycles.

Our whole team is really honored and humbled to have won six MUSE Awards this year. Winning MUSE Awards is especially great because these awards represent our team’s creative talents, tireless dedication and innovative visions in design, technology and science.

In Finland, creativity and design are part of our heritage. Design is ever-present in our surroundings. The high quality of Finnish design and technology as well as top-tier science are all sources of cultural pride and represent an important competitive factor for Finnish products and companies that want to stand out internationally.

Working with good intentions and a pure heart are key to creating meaningful products for people.

I feel that design is a process of getting to know a form and exploring its dimensions and shapes. In the end, there’s the feeling of knowing how the changes we make will affect to the end result and the certainty that the best possible design has revealed itself.