Speakers

Aku Wilenus is the CEO and Co-Founder of award-winning AI startup Caidio, which creates intelligent quality assurance solutions for building concrete cities and infrastructure. Aku served in several technology business management positions in Europe and globally in his previous roles at an American technology corporation National Instruments. CNBC, MoneyFM 89.3, and BusinessWorld recently interviewed him about Caidio's mission in applying data-driven technologies to reduce CO2 emissions in concrete production. The concrete industry is in charge of 15% of the carbon footprint in China and 8% globally.

Aleksi Kopponen works at the Ministry of Finance on the National Artificial Intelligence Program AuroraAI. In his work, Aleksi coordinates the systemical change of human-centric and proactive activities in extensive cooperation with various actors in public administration and other sectors. In addition, Aleksi conducts PhD studies at Aalto School of Economics on the transition of society to artificial intelligence in a human-centered and ethically sustainable way.

Alexander Törnroth is the lead at First AI Accelerator, the official ecoystem initiative for applied AI in Finland powered by Silo AI.

Andreas Hartl is Head of Division AI 1 (Artificial Intelligence, Data Economy, Blockchain) in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi). His division is responsible for the Artificial Intelligence strategy and the Blockchain strategy of the Federal Government. It is also the national coordinator for the EU's Data Governance Act, the Open Data and Public Sector Information Directive and the Free flow on non-personal data Regulation.

He studied law at Marburg University and took the second state exam in 2004. From 2004 until 2011 he entered employment at the Federal Network Agency. He joined the BMWi in 2012 as Deputy Head of the division responsible for general issues of telecommunication, competitive and regulatory issues of digitization.

Antti Myllymäki is Head of Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence at OP Financial Group. Center of excellence makes machine learning happen at OP, both what (AI vision) and how (all development work). Results include more than EUR 27M operational efficiency savings. Prior to joining OP, Antti worked with gaming, high tech and financial companies to improve their competitive position with data, advanced analytics and machine learning.

Antti Vasara is the President & CEO of VTT Ltd since 2015. VTT is a visionary research, development and innovation partner with over 2000 people and turnover exceeding 250 MEUR. He is president of EARTO (European Association of Research and Technology Organisations) and a non-executive director of Elisa Oyj (largest communications operator in Finland). He has served on several high-level groups on industrial and innovation policy of the European Commission in addition to several groups in Finland on artificial intelligence and research policy.

Previously, he has worked in the private industry for close to 25 years at Nokia, Tieto, SmartTrust and McKinsey & Company. Earlier in his career, he was a researcher in optical communications with 20+ peer reviewed articles and one international patent. Dr. Vasara holds a Doctor of Science (Technology) degree from Aalto University in Finland.

Professor Barry O’Sullivan holds the Chair in Constraint Programming at University College Cork in Ireland. He is the founding Director of the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at UCC, Principal Investigator at the Confirm Centre for Smart Manufacturing, and Director of the Science Foundation Ireland’s Centre for Research Training in AI. He is an Adjunct Professor at Monash University, Australia.

Professor O’Sullivan was vice chair of the European Commission High-Level Expert Group on AI and a scientific advisor to AI Watch, an initiative of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre tasked with monitoring the uptake of AI in Europe. He is an award-winning academic working in the fields of artificial intelligence, constraint programming, and operations research. He also works in AI and data ethics, as well as public policy-making related to AI.

He has a keen interest in the commercialisation of AI and is involved in a number of startup companies.  Professor O’Sullivan is a Fellow and a past President of the European AI Association, Fellow of the Irish Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the Irish Computer Society, and Member of the Royal Irish Academy.

Dan Still works as Partnerships Manager in the CSC Business Insights and Growth unit where he is responsible for developing public-private partnerships and research collaborations in high-performance and cloud computing.

Hanna Hagström has been working in ICT field 22 years and focusing on AI/data past seven years. At her current role as MD for Combient Mix (data science and analytics company) her mission is to support the Combient network to scale AI across the Nordics.

Director in charge of leading the Economic Development and Employment Unit of the City of Espoo and chairing the management group of Business Espoo, the local business service network. Responsible for supporting the growth of companies and creation of private sector jobs. Leading an inter-organizational development program which tackles wicked urban challenges related to competitiveness,  employment, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Harri Paananen has a background both in innovation management research as well as private sector work, ranging from consulting and business development to marketing and sales in Finland as well as internationally. Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, Harri naturally has also dabbled in startups and entrepreneurship. Growing up he played a lot of Sim City and Civilization. Living the dream!

Harri Santamala, aka “Mr. Robobus” is the CEO and co-founder of Sensible 4. His work focuses on developing new technologies for the autonomous driving space. Harri is one of the pioneers behind the Finnish road automation ecosystem and was one of the first ones to take automated buses to open-road conditions in 2016.

Henrikki Salo-Pöntinen works as a doctoral researcher in the Academy funded ETAIROS -project(external link, opens in a new window). His research focuses on developing theoretical frameworks and tools for the ethical design, development and deployment of AI technologies.

Himadri Majumdar is the Program manager for Quantum programmes at VTT. Firstly, he is leading the first Finnish quantum computer build project in Finland, currently ongoing at VTT in close cooperation with IQM. Himadri has almost 20 years of professional experience in innovation – both as a scientist himself and, lately, more in innovation management. Himadri holds a PhD in Applied Physics.

Himadri is passionate about creating impact from technology, both in business and society. He is strongly involved in strengthening the Quantum ecosystem in Finland. This has led to formation of InstituteQ: The Finnish Quantum Institute. Within which he is involved in building the business ecosystem around Quantum in Finland. He hopes to see Quantum tech become a Finnish success story.

Professor Ilkka Niemelä started as President of Aalto University in 2017. He is a professor of Computer Science. His previous positions at Aalto University include Dean of School of Science 2011-2012, Deputy President 2012-2014 and Provost during 2014-2017.

Joonas Jälkö is a PhD candidate in the Probabilistic Machine Learning group in Aalto University, supervised by Professor Samuel Kaski. He has worked on the topic of privacy-preserving machine learning, with the main focus on private data release. Joonas got his master's degree in mathematics from the University of Helsinki.

Juha Koponen is the Chief Operating Officer with CollectiveCrunch, leading engineering teams and customer operations. Collective Crunch applies AI to satellite and forestry data to predict forest inventories used for forestry as well as to quantify carbon captured in forests.

Juha started his career with fusion reactor experiments in Max Planck Institute in Germany, was growing international telecom software technology start-up First Hop and co-founded and developed as the CEO Swap.com, on-line store for pre-owned goods in the USA.

In 2000, Juha got his D.Sc. degree in Technical Physics in Helsinki University of Technology and has been loving the data ever since.

Jukka Mäkelä (b. 1960) has served as Mayor of Espoo since the beginning of 2011. As Mayor, Mäkelä wants to keep aiming high: The city’s strategy, the Espoo Story, sets the goal of ensuring that the city’s growth is economically, socially, environmentally and culturally sustainable. Espoo is a resident- and customer-oriented community that is used to solving the challenges presented by growth together with the local residents, businesses, universities and other educational institutions. Based on his experience, Mäkelä knows that Espoo will achieve the best results when people, communities and companies all work together.

Jussi Herlin works and learns at KONE Corporation – a global leader in People Flow solutions – as Vice Chair of the Board. He has served on the Board of Directors for 14 years, seven of which in the present position. Previously Jussi was a Strategy Development Manager in the Strategy and Market Intelligence team of KONE. In 2012 he graduated as M.Sc.(Econ.) in Management and International Business Communication from the Aalto University School of Business. Jussi also holds Board positions in Security Trading Oy, Holding Manutas Oy, Tiina and Antti Herlin Foundation, Kaskas Media Oy and Technology Industries of Finland.

Jussi is endlessly fascinated by artificial intelligence, urbanization, leadership, intersectional feminism, impactful business and behavioural sciences.

I am Jussi Leinonen and graduated in 2009 from University of Tampere with a MD degree and in 2017 from Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a PhD degree.

I have worked at Bayer now for four years after many years of work as a clinical practitioner under several therapeutic areas combined with research experience in basic and preclinical regenerative medicine. In my current position as clinical data scientist at Bayer's global R&D, I am responsible in managing and leading portfolio of data insights projects and initiatives in clinical research.

I constantly explore various disciplines to broaden my skills and understanding in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector. My current areas of interest are data science, clinical research, precision medicine, regenerative biology, corporate strategy, leadership and organizational culture.

Liisa Peltonen is the General Manager for Microsoft Surface Technology Center in Finland. After 20 years as a leader in the global consumer electronics and semiconductor industry she continues to be fascinated about the beauty and complexity of creating transformative personal computing for the future.

Marina Bill is the Global Head of Marketing and Sales for ABB’s Robotics and Discrete Automation business. She has held this role since 2019.

Since joining ABB in 1997, she has held various positions of increasing responsibility including Global Head of Marketing and Sales for ABB’s Robotics and Motion Division, Product Group Manager for ABB’s Power Generation Automation Products business line, Global Marketing and Sales Manager ABB Automation business line, Global Project Excellence Manager of ABB Power Systems division, Marketing Manager and Regional Sales Manager, ABB Network Management.

As of 2020, Marina is a member of the IFR (International Federation of Robotics) Executive Board, currently serving as Chair of the IFR Robotic Suppliers Committee. She is also a board member of PIAB AB, a Swedish automation company specialized on gripping, lifting and moving solutions, as well as the president of ADRA, an AI, Data, and Robotics partnership in digital, industry, and space in Horizon Europe.

Marina has lived and worked in Sweden, the UK, Germany and the Philippines. She is currently based in Zurich, Switzerland.

Marina holds a master’s degree in industrial engineering and management, specializing in thermodynamics from the Royal institute of Technology in Stockholm. She is a graduate of the International Institute for Management Development’s (IMD) Senior Leadership Development Program in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Matti Mäntymäki is an Associate Professor on Information Systems at University of Turku. He is the Principal Investigator of the AIGA project that focuses on AI governance and auditing.

Meeri Haataja is the CEO and Co-Founder of Saidot, a start-up with a mission for responsible AI ecosystems. Saidot is a platform for teams, who want to make their AI transparent and invite their stakeholders into a dialogue around transparency. Saidot's platform is used by major public and private organizations, such as the Cities of Amsterdam and Helsinki, to operate their AI registers and communicate openly about their AI.

Meeri was the chair of the ethics working group in Finland’s national AI program that submitted its final report in March 2019. She is the Chair of IEEE’s ethics certification program for AI systems, and an Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

Miapetra Kumpula-Natri is a member of the European Parliament. At the moment, she serves, amongst other positions, as the Vice-Chair of the Special Committee on Artificial Intelligence in a Digital Age (AIDA), Vice-Chair of the European Parliament delegation to the United States and a Member of Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE). In these capacities she is actively involved in the design of the key digital policy initatives in the European Parliament.

Minister of Economic Affairs Mika Lintilä was born in Toholampi, Central Ostrobothnia, Finland. This is his sixth term as Member of Parliament. During his parliamentary career that began in 1999, Lintilä has been member of the Commerce Committee and the Finance Committee and he has also chaired the Tax Sub-committee of the Finnish Parliament. He served as Minister of Economic Affairs and Ownership steering in the previous Finnish Government under Prime Minister Juha Sipilä.

Lintilä holds a Bachelor's degree in Administrative Sciences from the University of Tampere.
Prior to his political career, Lintilä worked as Head of Finances at Finland’s oldest meat processing company Pouttu Ltd. Lintilä’s military rank is sergeant first class in the reserves. In 1988–1990, he participated in the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) on the Golan Heights.

A trotting enthusiast, Lintilä chaired the Finnish Trotting and Breeding Association in 2008–2016 and was member of the Board of European Trotting Union in 2009–2016. He also plays football and follows spectator sports very actively.

Mika Viljanen works as an associate professor of private law at the University of Turku. He has worked on the regulation of artificial intelligence for several years and focused on liability for AI entities, insurance, and regulatory theory for AI systems.

Mikko Honkala leads a machine Learning research group in Nokia Bell Labs and has previously worked for Nokia Research Center as a machine learning scientist. His interests include novel ML methods and application areas, such as wireless radio systems and sensing. He has a PhD from HUT (Aalto) Finland.

Otto Söderlund is an experienced growth entrepreneur with a solid track record of building and growing international digital businesses, and recognized as a digital disruption and transformation expert and advisor. Prior to founding Speechly he co-founded Magenta Advisory which was the leading Nordic digital management consultancy boutique, eventually acquired by BearingPoint. He also helps and invests in early stage startups leveraging AI technologies to disrupt industries.

Outi Keski-Äijö is heading AI Business program in Business Finland Oy. AI Business program (total funding 240 M€) aims that Finnish companies create new and globally competitive digital services by funding and enhancing their capabilities to utilize data and AI. Furthermore, AI Business program promotes Finnish AI internationally and brings foreign companies to Finnish AI ecosystem.

Outi Keski-Äijö has 25+ years of experience in ICT, change leadership and innovation management. Prior to Business Finland she has worked for Nokia Corporation, Okmetic Ltd and Tekes (Finnish Innovation Agency).

Pekka Laurila is the Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of ICEYE. ICEYE is launching
and operating a constellation of small radar imaging satellites, providing access to timely
and reliable Earth observation data. ICEYE is the first company that has successfully
miniaturized a SAR satellite, making it possible to launch more units to reliably image any
location on Earth, every few hours, every day. With its growing SAR satellite constellation,
ICEYE offers its partners a set of unprecedented satellite imaging capabilities, accessing any
area of interest faster, more frequently, and at a lower cost.

As CSO, Laurila has been instrumental in establishing and directing the company’s strategy,
and previously as CFO, raising the initial $20M funds for ICEYE. Laurila joined forces with
ICEYE Co-founder Rafal Modrzewski to create synthetic-aperture radar (SAR)
microsatellites to solve various large scale issues the world faces, including those related to
the ice monitoring for maritime safety, agricultural financing with objective data, and a
wide range of further Earth observation analytics. Laurila brings with him deep domain
expertise in Geographic information systems, and he has received the 2018 Forbes 30 under
30 Technology award based on the world-first achievements of ICEYE.

Prior to co-founding ICEYE, Laurila played an instrumental role in Finland’s Aalto
University nanosatellite Program Aalto-1, where he studied as a student of the Engineering
and Geoinformation Systems program.

Pekka Sivonen is the founder of Digia, a publicly NASDAQ OMX -listed software-company. He took the company from 1 person to 1.600 persons. He has  20 years experience in mobile software and systems integration and 35 years as entrepreneur. During that time Pekka was selected the Entrepreneur Of The Year in Finland by Ernst &Young in years 2004, 2005 and 2006.

When joining government in 2016,  Pekka became responsible for digitalization strategy and programs at Business Finland, a state-owned innovation funding and export promotion agency. National programs for Platform Economy and Artificial Intelligence, 5G, Industrial Internet, Mixed Reality (AR/VR) and Smart City were established and operated under his leadership. June 2018 he was nominated EVP Digital Transformation of Finnish Industries.

Pekka has been Head of Finnish Liaison office on EU Research and Innovation in Brussels since August 1st 2021.

Pekka Törmälä has had senior roles in consumer businesses - banking (Sampo, Danske), hospitality (Radisson, Sokos Hotels) and retail (Sokos + supplier to leading European retailers).

• Running data/analytics driven multichannel sales/marketing/service organizations.
• Executive Advisor Columbia Road Oy and Board member Vuonogorup Oy.

Dr. Peter Ylén is Development manager at City of Espoo responsible for better utilization of data. His area of interest include analytics, modelling, simulation, optimization, analysis and re-engineering of technological, social, cognitive and business processes. Recent application fields include topics, such as, energy optimization, sustainable traffic policies, managing youth social exclusion and mental health challenges, improving quality and productivity in construction, determining leverage points for regional attractiveness, developing regional circular economy and planning future hospital.

Petri Myllymäki is a professor of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at the Department of Computer Science of University of Helsinki, Finland, and the Director of the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT), a joint research institute of University of Helsinki and Aalto University. He is an ELLIS Fellow at ELLIS Unit Helsinki, and works as the Vice-Director of the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence (FCAI). Prof. Myllymäki has over 30 years of experience in artificial intelligence research, and his applied research has led to a number of fielded applications, patents and startups. He is a member of the Finnish Academy of Technology and the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.

Sami Kalliokoski leads technology development at Aiforsite. He has more than two decades of experience in developing intelligent systems. He has founded several smart technology startups and also received several patents and innovation awards. In recent years, Sami’s team has been developing data collection methods and algorithm models to identify phenomena related to the construction project.

Teemu Haapalehto (M.Soc.Sc., EMBA) is working for the City of Espoo as a manager of immigration affairs. He has two decades of experience in developing services to support the integration of immigrants. Teemu is fascinated by the opportunities of using data-analytics to improve public service provision, but in the middle of the digital revolution, remains true to the analog love of his life: vinyl records!

Timo Heikkinen is the CEO and co-founder of Top Data Science. He has over 20 years experience in different business management roles in technology driven industries. Timo is passionate about working with innovative customers and helping them to gain benefits from applying AI and data in their business.