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Tatu Koljonen and Marko Turpeinen

Helsinki Node Director Marko Turpeinen has been selected as the Director for the EIT ICT Labs Silicon Valley Hub. He will start in this position on May 1st, 2015. Marko is already very familiar with USA and Silicon Valley as he graduated from MIT in 2000 and was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley during 2009-2010.

EIT ICT Labs Nodes and their partners are already tightly connected with the Silicon Valley ecosystem. Our presence in USA builds on these existing relationships of our partners and the interests of our entrepreneurs. The outpost represents the European ecosystem, but is also deeply embedded in the local US context of innovators, start-ups, educators and researchers.

Our first batch of initiatives for the Silicon Valley Hub has focused on education collaboration, especially in strengthening the Blended Education offerings of EIT ICT Labs with Coursera, and co-creation of online courses with top US universities. We are also launching collaboration around selected innovation priority areas, such as software defined networks and smart mobility”, explains Marko.  

Silicon Valley Hub will also be an integral part of the Business Development Accelerator and Access-to-Finance activities of EIT ICT Labs. The aim is to help boost bi-directional exploration and exploitation of market and investment opportunities: from Europe to USA, as well as from USA to Europe. We work in very close collaboration with national agencies and accelerators already established in Silicon Valley helping to boost the growth of the most promising innovators.

Tatu Koljonen the new Node Director for Helsinki

The chairman of the Node Steering Committee Tatu Koljonen took the baton from Marko and will start as Node Director on May 1. Tatu worked before at VTT Technical Research Center of Finland as Vice President for Strategic Research in ICT and most recently as Director, Strategic network and operations. He has actively participated in defining and implementing new instruments for both EU and national innovation system including Artemis JU, Digile and EIT ICT Labs. Before joining VTT, Tatu worked 11 years for Nokia Corporation in Corporate Strategy as Director and Head of Technology in Insight and Foresight unit. Tatu has an extensive experience on Asia having lived there for six years first in Japan as General Manager of Nokia Research Center Japan, establishing the unit, and in China as Director, Strategic Planning and Programs, Nokia China.

I have been involved in EIT ICT Labs from the very beginning. Succeeding in 2009 in the application for the ICT KIC felt great, especially since our pilot application failed. In the new job I am excited to see how our concepts work in practice, instead of only theorizing about them. We have also gained a higher level of understanding what the digitalization really means and requires for Europe, which accents the demand for EIT ICT Labs. I also want to continue on Marko’s path and make Helsinki Node the best place to work through clearest purpose and brightest people”, states Tatu.

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