David rarely slays Goliath in the tech world but, as the new Channel 4 drama Mobile 101 reminds us, sometimes the little guy can triumph, at least for a time.

The six-part Finnish series tells how Nokia – at the time almost unknown outside its native Finland and largely known there for making rubber boots – took on the US giant Motorola, built an iconic phone and became the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer.

At an online RTS London event last month, three of Mobile 101’s key creatives spoke to Walter Iuzzolino, co-founder of Walter Presents, Channel 4’s foreign drama strand. Mobile 101 has enjoyed success far beyond Finland: as well as being picked up by Walter Presents for UK viewers, it has also been bought by Disney+.

Created and written by Maarit Lalli (The Sixth Time), Mobile 101 was the first drama taken on by Rabbit Films, previously a factual producer, after it hired Minna Haapkylä as head of scripted content.

Haapkylä said: “When Maarit came to me with this incredible story, I thought, ‘Why has someone not told it already?’ It was an easy step to take to make a TV series.”

Lalli had long been fascinated by the miraculous rise of a company on the back of a new invention – the mobile phone – and its subsequent dramatic fall. She originally wanted to make a film, but Haapkylä, who executive produced the drama, felt the “subject was [too] huge”.

Lead actor Sampo Sarkola (Bordertown), plays Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila. For Sarkola, the attraction was to play a character in a “position with such power”, but also to find “the things in the character that make him vulnerable and interesting for the audience”.

Sarkola talked to former Nokia employees, but was overwhelmed by the amount written about the CEO. Nokia “was such a big part of the Finnish economy, I realised I couldn’t take it all in. I followed the script, of course, and tried to make him as human as possible.”

The first season of Mobile 101 (there are two more to come) aired in Finland last year and tells the story of Nokia’s early days. Season 2, which has not yet started shooting, will follow its rise and entry on to the world stage; the third, on its fall, is in development.

Mobile 101 is thoroughly researched. ‘I love facts and, if something has happened, I want tell it as [it was], but the personal lives of the characters are from my screenwriters’ heads,” said Lalli.

For season 1, with Nokia on the up, Haapkylä said, “everyone was really happy to talk about those times”. She acknowledged that it may be different for the succeeding series, when the company’s fortunes dip: “The story becomes harder to tell.”

The online RTS London event was held on 3 May and produced by Damien Ashton-Wellman. It can be watched here. Mobile 101 is available on Channel 4.