Teams 2016-2017

Team Dlearn.Helsinki wants to develop pedagogical tools and practices for schools that struggle with educating their students in a globalizing world. Today, there seems to be a gap between the curriculum and what interests students. Young generations need new global competencies, and this team aims to bring these competencies into practice in schools.

Contact info: auli.toom@helsinki.fi, +358 504154852

Articles: Meet the finalists: Dlearn.Helsinki

Team Dlearn.Helsinki: "Our tools will make learning more interesting"

This team fights malaria infections with a simple yet efficient two-part solution: layered mosquito nets and a vaccine, which makes human blood toxic to mosquitoes.

Contact info: seppo.meri@helsinki.fi, 050-5812462

Articles: Meet the finalists: ELMO

Team ELMO: Creating new ways of preventing malaria to save millions of lives

Millions of people in the world are waiting for kidney transplants but there aren’t enough organ donors. FutuRena wants to 3D print a functioning mini-kidney in order to save countless lives.

Contact info: susanna.kaisto@oulu.fi, +358 50 3688 140

Articles: Meet the finalists: FutuRena

Team FutuRena: Printed kidneys can change the future of organ transplants

HeatStock wants to develop a material that stores heat for a long time. Their success would mean a leap forward for renewable energy and help stop climate change.

Contact info: ari.seppala@aalto.fi, 0504412110

Articles: Meet the finalists: HeatStock

Team HeatStock: Use summer’s heat during the winter

Team iCombine wants to create data mining tools that find the best cure for individual cancer patients. With the help of their model, a huge amount of biomedical knowledge could be turned into individualized treatment options.

Contact info: jing.tang@helsinki.fi, +358 45 8689708

Articles: Meet the finalists: iCombine

Team iCombine: “Our model could make cancer treatment more effective”

Team Parental Box wants to develop a mental health toolkit for young families. The idea is to provide easy access to resources that help both children and their parents cope with daily issues and problems. This toolkit is also a way for researchers to gather data about families’ needs.

Contact info: lotta.uusitalo-malmivaara@helsinki.fi, 0400-514365

Articles: Meet the finalists: Parental Box

Team Parental Box: Mental maternity box secures the well-being of families

POCKit is creating a device for patients to test for multiple microbes and different stages of disease all at once. This could save millions of euros and stop the spreading of communicable infectious diseases.

Contact info: leona.k.gilbert@jyu.fi, +358407234718

Articles: Meet the finalists: POCKit

Team POCKit: We want to put the power of diagnostics in the hands of the patients

This solution aims at establishing a countrywide network of energy villages: areas that produce their own renewable energy. Starting from the Finnish countryside, it helps bid farewell to fossil fuels and airs out the current energy systems.

Contact info: pekka.peura@uva.fi, 02 94498206

Articles: Team Energy Village 500: Starting an energy revolution with a network of self-sufficient areas

This team loves to help people understand what nature wants. Wave Farmers are building a smart sensing device, which monitors soil properties and balances the soil ecosystem, thereby optimising plant growth in a specific soil condition.

Contact info: robertus.nugroho@aalto.fi, +358 503604131

Articles: Team Wave Farmers: Our sensing device would help sustain a healthy soil ecosystem

This team wants to make the analysis of water’s metal concentrations faster and less expensive. A new method makes this possible, on-site and real-time.

Contact info: tuomo.nissinen@uef.fi, +358 505644418

Articles: Team 3A Water: New on-site method for analysing very low metal concentrations in water

EduRemix aims to facilitate the adoption of digitalization in teaching. The team wants to create an educational package to help teachers with this process. One part of the package is a software that combines all digital educational content into one desktop.

Contact info: marja-leena.bilund@helsinki.fi, +358 40 7362547

Articles: Team EduRemix: Digitalization in education is an opportunity, not a threat

This team wants to put forests to good use instead of clearing them for arable land. They have produced a wood-based biomass that can be mixed with animal feed. This blend significantly improves the health and bacterial resistance of farm animals.

Contact info: olli.dahl@aalto.fi, +358 405401070

Articles: Team Pro Fibers: Finnish biomass keeps animals and forests healthy

Metabold wants to improve the quality of life of the elderly. With an analytics method called metabolic profiling, the team can find out the health status of a senior citizen and how it can be improved.

Contact info: kati.hanhineva@uef.fi, 040-3552364

Articles: Team Metabold: Analyzing the metabolism of the elderly will lead to more accurate nutrition and medication

This team wants to reduce the cognitive decline that we face as we age. It can be prevented by creating attractive 3D environments for cognitive and physical training, and studying the changes in brain activity through neuroimaging methods.

Contact info: ping.jiang@helsinki.fi, 0453177986

Articles: Team Senior Cognitive Booster: Tackling elderly people’s cognitive challenges using virtual environments

The European Union aims to become as emission free as possible by 2050, which is why we need more renewable energy and ways of storing it. This team develops clean catalyst materials that would make the chemical industry cleaner and the world more sustainable.

Contact info: tanja.kallio@aalto.fi, +358 50 5637 567

Articles: Team Catalyst Supreme: Making the world emission free with new catalyst materials

F-Factor wants to change the way cities are developed. The aim is to build an open platform in which communities and urban developers can meet and build more user-centered, personalised living spaces.

Contact info: Tero Vanhanen, tero.vanhanen@fira.fi, 050 360 2276

Articles: Team F-Factor: “We’re developing a Tinder for urbanisation”

As the global population grows and Asia becomes wealthier, there is a growing demand for cotton and other cellulose-based textiles. This team is developing a new type of cellulose fiber made out of Finnish wood.

Contact info: herbert.sixta@aalto.fi, +358 50 384 1764

Articles: Team Ioncell: We’re developing a new type of fiber out of Finnish wood

Team Reconfigure Mobility wants to create a network of experts who will solve the challenges of sustainable mobility. The aim is to facilitate cross-disciplinary research and link it with business and society.

Contact info: mikko.sarela@aalto.fi, +358 505661232

Articles: Team Reconfigure Mobility: A network that makes traffic sustainable

Team CoLearning CoPassion tackles the loneliness of young urban people using other young people as peer educators. The idea is to spread the skills of compassion (the ability to notice other people’s distress empathetically and react to it), co-passion (the ability to feel and co-live other people’s joy and enthusiasm) and self-compassion.

Contact info: anne.b.pessi@helsinki.fi, +358294123453

Articles: Team CoLearning CoPassion: We help students teach emotional skills to their younger peers

Myonit is creating a monitor that can x-ray bedrock as deep as one kilometer underground. The device, Muon Monitor, aims to improve geological modelling and discover natural resources in a sustainable way.

Contact info: timo.enqvist@oulu.fi, 040-8288335

Articles: Team Myonit: An underground x-ray can lead to the discovery of new natural resources