Vi Van and Pyry Taanila are testing a multimedium tent.
Kalevi Ekman listens to Mikko Ikola´s planned trip to Shanghai.
through the generator does not reduce the heating output,” he says. “Kipinä is a preliminary study to see if the solution is viable in the first place. The team started-off by burning wood in a stove for one whole day and measuring the amount of heat energy. Information about what not to do is also valuable to companies,” Ekman explains. We pass a big machine room, where the axles of a field robot are machined with a metal lathe. The robot is destined for an inter-university competition in Germany. All of the technology, including the automation software, has been developed here. CALIFORNIA CALLING. In the common room, Pyry Taanila, from
LETTING THE MIND FLY. Our round ends at the first-floor offices,
where the national MIND team works under the lead of Lotta Hassi, M. Sc. (Econ.). MIND aims to build a prototype of a world-class innovation system around the core of Aalto and to bring social and business
THE LEADERSHIP LAB,
which will be set up at Aalto University Executive Education, aims at a breakthrough in the development of leadership abilities. It will integrate scientific research, experimental application and pedagogic innovation. 18
Aalto entrepreneurship society http://aaltoes.com
the Lahti Institute of Design, and Ville Sundberg, from the Aalto University School of Science and Technology, sit in a tent made of white touch walls where they project theme images of YLE’s, the Finnish Broadcasting Company’s, popular programs from a computer onto the wall. The images grab your attention in the closed space. “YLE asked us to look for the best ways to develop program concepts. We will also present our solution at the California science fair in the spring and compare it to the solution developed at the Stanford University,” the two explain. Back in the restaurant, we meet a team of Finns and Germans devising ways to make helicopters more maneuverable. The project coordinator, Mikko Koskinen, stops to explain the idea of usercentered product development. “We want to take care of people so they feel good at work. In a multidisciplinary team, we need to prioritize between product functionality, usability and price. Purchase decisions depend on whether they are made by the end-user or the purchasing department.”
players, researchers and students together to create strategic innovations. “Anything can be approached critically: the structure of the Finnish forest industry, the daycare system – even the national hockey league structure,” says Hassi. Hassi and Ekman believe that the traditional “sauna meetings,” where ideas crop up but fail to be implemented, will eventually disappear from Finland. “Small tools encourage big changes. The license to act differently is a plastic card easily drawn from the jacket pocket when needed. The gym of management cards, in turn, provides good exercise for the brain. Twenty minutes of repetitions makes for a good workout,” Hassi assures. MIND includes all of the Factories, along with some twenty of Finland’s leading professors and research managers, as well as numerous commercial and voluntary participants, such as Finnish companies KCL, RDNet, Techvilla and Active Life Village. SAVORING FRESH KNOWLEDGE. Hannu Seristö, Vice President of the Aalto University, believes that the new University and its Factories will attract more and more international students in the future. Jointly devised solutions are more valuable than the results of lone work. The over 400 students who graduate annually from the EMBA and MBA programs are sought-after employees everywhere. A small group of students of engineering and high tech production will now begin studies in the School of Economics’ EMBA program. “We also hope to attract students from the School of Art and Design in the future. Good MBA graduates have a good understanding of all three fields: technology, management and creativity,” says Seristö.
“The Lab will offer an inspiring environment for doing visionary thinking, gearing up, implementing strategy and developing as a leader,” says Stiina Vistbacka, Managing Director of Aalto EE. The result will be a multidisciplinary, real-time scientific bedrock and laboratory. Leadership innovations will quickly be put into practice, and the results of experiments will be shared with customers. The learning and test environments can be physical or virtual. Cooperation will be promoted with both
researchers and pioneering companies. Collaboration forms the basis for seeking new opportunities in the operating environment and learning to seize them. Individuals can test the results of changing one’s own way of acting. Leadership training will also teach calmer thinking. Groups will analyze the functionality of activities, for example, by testing new tools, such as virtual environments or visually different spaces, or by regulating the amount of information.