Bitfest is a seminar with inspiring and motivating speakers along with interesting and fresh topics. Audience is filled with HAMK students from different degree programs, HAMK staff, business partners of HAMK and through a live stream, part-time students and others inclined have a chance to participate too.
The fifth BitFest seminar was organized in HAMK this year. The event was hosted by HAMK lecturers Tommi Saksa and Eveliina Toivonen.
Helidona Dehari from Tieto Oyj opened the seminar with a topic
“Linear career paths are broken”. Dehari talked about the growing pains in her career path and how it lead to Tieto oyj and finally to the position of Employer Branding. She told about the industry change that she experienced at the time, the importance of understanding and adapting to an IT industry.
Dehari emphasized the importance of business skills, technology skills and people skills. These set of skills are crucial in order to keep up with the world of work which is nowadays driven by technology. In the constantly changing world you need to be able and willing to learn. The digital world has made it possible for us to learn in so many different and easier ways.
Ones own attitude is the best asset in a career path. The willingness to learn and work for your goal will get you where you want to get.
Second speaker was Ilmari Huttu-Hiltunen from Rakka, a leading cinematic production company in Finland, which creates 360 VR video content.
Huttu-Hiltunen started the company Rakka in 2015. Rakka creates training content, brand videos, advertisement and marketing videos and documentaries for their customers using 360-degree VR cameras. Virtual reality is not only about watching and seeing something but experiencing and transmitting existence to the watcher. 360 cameras are able to catch every glimpse and with virtual glasses the experience can be created to the customer. Huttu-Hiltunen mentions that 360 VR is a slow-moving industry because of it’s complexity, you need to understand all the technical aspects and variables in order to succeed in it.
As Huttu-Hiltunen stated 360 VR will be the future of media technology.
“With virtual reality we enable your customers to experience your brand the most powerful way ever.” -Rakka
Ville Siipola, a senior lecturer in HAMK, from the design degree program introduced the audience to Smart Design Lab. Smart Design Lab is a lab that is being developed in the Visamäki campus at the moment, consisting of digital machinery such as 3D-printer, laser cutters and printers for large scale printing.
“In short, smart design is where technology meets design.” -Ville Siipola
Smart Design Lab is for the students to develop concepts and ideas but also a way to connect and create collaborations with researchers and companies. The goal is to create a team with different kinds of expertise and professional skills.
Smart Design Lab is also a part of the HAMK Design Factory, which is a concept introduced to HAMK as a result of a partnership with Aalto University. Design Factory is a global network consisting of 27 design factories all over the world.
The Smart Design Lab is planning to connect with the Fab Lab network, originated from MIT, which is based on over 1000 Fab Labs around the world. Joining the Fab Lab community brings along some requirements which need to be met, in addition it brings along a great global connection for Smart Design Lab.
The last speaker of Bit Fest was Peter Vesterbacka. He is the founder of MobileMonday and Slush start-up event as well as a former Mighty Eagle at Angry Birds.
Rovio, the company that created Angry Birds game was a turning point for his career and like he said they were able to achieve goals that were not suppose be possible. With the takeoff of Angry Birds game, Rovio was able to create Angry Birds brand. They started focusing on the brand from every aspect; movie, animations, toys, soda drinks and succeeded in creating the fastest growing consumer brand.
Following Vesterbacka’s career transition, he wanted to focus on education. Education is the second biggest market in the world. In the next ten years Vesterbacka is pursuing to reduce the global education markets from 6.3 trillion to 3 trillion. He is cooperating with businesses he established, businesses he has invested in and businesses he is advicing, in order to make this reduction in the markets happen. He wants to see the Finnish education model introduced and utilized in the world.
Vesterbacka is also working on education with Headai which is a robotics company concentrating on Artificial Intelligence(AI). The company is years ahead of competitors in the designing of AI. In collaboration with Headai, Vesterbacka is planning on creating a student campus for AI and initiating new programs for student in robotics branch.
The most known project of Vesterbacka at the moment is the tunnel project which is a 15 billion infrastructure project. The vision is to build a 103 kilometer tunnel from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia with an artificial island in between. The tunnel will be connecting Helsinki airport as well as Tallinn airport. Plan is to have the trains up and running in 2024. There is also a hidden agenda for the tunnel project, for the Slush start-up event to grow. They need to have more accommodation options and faster connection routes. The tunnel and the artificial island would enable the Slush to expand as much as it can.
Tessa Brander
