Professor Sasu Tarkoma is promoter of corporate collaboration of 2016

This University of Helsinki prize was awarded for the first time ever.

Sasu Tarkoma, professor of computer science, has been exemplary in promoting collaboration between the University of Helsinki and the corporate world, the university states as the reasoning behind the prize.

He has brought the university new funding through corporate collaboration, and has opened up new avenues in teaching and open data. In addition, Professor Tarkoma participates in university-based startup work, says Vice-Rector Pertti Panula, who gave away the prize.

It’s a joy to collaborate with the industries. I believe that it’s a win-win for both parties, both the university and the corporations. The secret to success is the good teamwork, and I have had the fortune to work with good teams, said Tarkoma in his thank-you speech.

Left-right: Maarit Haataja, Sasu Tarkoma, Antti Neimala, Pertti Panula

 

Tarkoma’s innovation presented at SLUSH

In 2015, Sasu Tarkoma presented his innovation at SLUSH, leading to the establishment of a startup called MoPrim, with the aid of HIS. He is now a member of its board, and MoPrim was also prominently on display at this year’s SLUSH, seeking more backing.

The startup machinery has now started up at the university, Tarkoma says.

Tarkoma’s innovation is related to technology for sensing movement, and could be useful both in public transportation and for individuals.

Corporate collaboration expanding into open oline course

From the viewpoint of the university, the external funding  gained by Tarkoma is significant. He has headed many projects with corporate funding. The value of the projects is some 1.2 million euros. In addition, he has managed several TEKES projects and gained funding from the Academy of Finland.

It is also thanks to Professor Sasu Tarkoma that the university started a MOOC (massive open online course) in information security in cooperation with F-Secure. Over 30,000 users have visited the website, and 30% of them visited from the USA.

The university research services encourage corporate collaboration

The promoter of corporate collaboration of 2016 was announced on 13 December 2016. In addition to the main prize, smaller awards were given to all the trailblazers of corporate collaboration at the university.

Vice Managing Director Antti Neimala of the Federation of Finnish Enterprises, who spoke at the prize ceremony, emphasized that an increasing number of jobs are created in the SME sector.

More and more, enterprises are looking for university skills within the business sector, Neimala said.

The university services can offer encouragement and support for corporate collaboration

It’s great that the university management encourages and supports researchers interested in collaborating with corporations. The team for corporate collaboration will increase to seven in 2017. We are here for researchers and enterprises alike. Do not hesitate to contact us if you need help with corporate collaboration, says Maarit Haataja, service manager for corporate collaboration.

 

Text: Maria Linkoaho-Nordling, Minna Meriläinen-Tenhu, Joel Takala, Heidi Kinnunen

Translation: Marina Kurtén

Photo: Linda Tammisto

Created date

21.12.2016 - 17:11

Not just the local hero

For the Department of Computer Science, the well-being of international staff has a long history. Everyday communication in English is an essential part of this.

“It makes no sense to be just the local hero. If we want to develop further, we’ll need to follow international research standards” emphasises Juergen Muench. The German Professor has been leading the Software Systems Engineering research group at Helsinki University’s Department of Computer Science since 2011.

Linus Torvalds inspiring department students


Linus Torvalds – alumnus of the department, doctor honoris causa of the University of Helsinki, the best known representative of Finnish computer science internationally – visited the Kumpula campus on 23 October. He answered the questions of students and staff during an informal Q&A session attended by some 300 guests. As the floor was open, and Torvalds emphasized that all questions were welcomed, the queries ranged from extreme to extreme

Exactum rooftop greenhouse experiment grows herbs

A greenhouse has been built on the roof of Exactum in a collaboration by the Department of Computer Science and the Fifth Dimension science project. To begin with, sedum grass is growing on the roof and tomatoes, courgettes and chilli in the greenhouse. The greenhouse is 9.4 square metres large.

The motivation for the computer scientists is the estimation that 2% of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans are emitted by equipment using information technology. This is more than e.g. air traffic produces globally. To the scientists, this is reason enough to look into how to decrease the impact of information technology on global warming.

Study, teach and do what is fun

New postgraduates have recently been selected for the HeCSE graduate school that the department shares with Aalto University. One of the rising young researchers is Antti Laaksonen.

 

Antti finished his Master’s degree in spring 2011. Those whose job description includes reading lightweight Scrum theses written for the industry may be heartened by the fact that this student wrote his thesis on a most essential area of computer science, i.e. minimization of regular expressions. Antti chose his topic himself, because it was ‘interesting and suitably challenging.’