Are your future plans green?

Academician, prof. Markku Kulmala leads the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR), University of Helsinki. He is active in international initiatives to improve comprehensive continuous measurement networks all around the world, and to solve air quality – climate change interactions. Kulmala’s research consists of SMEAR (Stations for Measuring the Earth surface – Atmosphere Relationships) field stations and GlobalSMEAR network. Kulmala has published over 1000 original research papers, 18 of which in Nature, 17 in Science and 7 in Physical Review Letters. According to the ISI Web of Knowledge, Kulmala has been 1st in the Citation Rankings in Geosciences (1.5.2011 – 30.4.2018). The total number of citations is over 62000 (from over 20000 different papers). His H-factor is 122.

Prof. Kulmala is the Foreign Member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Russian Academy of Sciences. He is a member of 5 other Academies. He acts as a president of European Center of International Eurasian Academy of Sciences. He is winner of many international awards (>10) and has nine honored doctoral degrees / professorships.

Professor Sasu Tarkoma is Head of Department at the Department of Computer Science, University of Helsinki and Director of the Helsinki Center for Data Science (HiDATA).  He has authored 4 textbooks and published over 250 scientific articles and 10 granted US Patents; his h-index is 43. He is Fellow of IET and EAI. His research interests are AI and 6G and their applications. His research has received several Best Paper awards and mentions, for example, at IEEE PerCom, ACM CCR, and ACM OSR. He is actively involved in the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT), the Finnish Center for AI (FCAI) flagship, Helsinki Center for Data Science (HiDATA), and the Allied ICT Finland network.

His flagship MegaSense research program aims to elevate air quality and environmental monitoring to the next level by providing a real-time and accurate view to the chemical cocktail and the micro climates of mega cities. MegaSense involves a novel hierarchy of distributed air quality sensors, in which more accurate sensors calibrate lower cost sensors. Current low-cost air quality sensors suffer from measurement drift and they have low accuracy. This significant open problem is addressed by a new AI-based calibration scheme. MegaSense integrates with the 5G cellular network and leverages mobile edge computing for sensor management and distributed pollution map creation.

Reetta Kivelä has unique experience in both research and the food industry, the integration of the two fields, as well as the innovation chain and she has worked for 15 years at the interface of food science and product development. She has experience from corporations and start-ups. Gold&Green Food Oy, which is known by Kivelä’s invention Pulled Oats, was the first food company she co-founded. Kivelä has broad experience of the Finnish food industry and related positions, ranging from product development to management and marketing, as well as the research sector.

Kivelä’s fields of speciality include the innovation process as well as the development and management of innovations in sustainable food chains. Currently, she divides her time between circular economy -based Nordic Umami Company and the University of Helsinki where she works as a Professor of Practice in Innovation Management and Sustainable Food Chains. She lives as she teaches with a mission to build dynamic food innovation ecosystem and a sustainable food system.