SPEAKERS
MATCH XR 2020 SPEAKERS
Presentations by innovative Finnish XR companies, artists and scientists –
hear what they have created and chat with them face-to-face after presentations at AltspaceVR,
or observe the show through our Youtube stream.
Check out our last year’s speakers below!
Peter Antoniac
CTO & Co-founder
Augumenta
Peter has a long history in the field of AR, in academic research (PhD) and in business as one of the founders of Augumenta.
Peter is also consulting the European Commission on future tech.
05:00 pm – Presentation: “How to deploy augmented reality interfaces in the industry“
Christina Forsgård
Founder
Netprofile
Christina Forsgård is an Angel Investor, Mother of Santa, Godmother of Slush, Cyber and Space Nerd by heart and a geeky marketing and communications humanist influencer and entrepreneur by profession. She is the founder of marketing communications consultancy Netprofile.
She has been coaching tech startups at Aalto University Startup Sauna, Vertical and xEdu and is currently Member of the Board of Psyon Games. She has published a business book on social media in Finland and is a regular speaker and a coach in business and PR seminars in Finland and abroad.
Christina was nominated TOP100 ICT influencer and visionary in Finland in 2009. Christina served five years (2009-2014) as the Chairman of MTL Communications Consultancies in Finland and acted as the Finnish representative at the ICCO Board. She was elected as the first ICCO Global Ethics Chair in 2019.
09:15 am – Good Morning From Helsinki: Panel Discussion, facilitator
Annastina Haapasaari
Project Manager, Opera Beyond
Finnish National Opera and Ballet
Annastina Haapasaari is a specialist working at the crossroads of arts and technology. Currently, she is leading the Finnish National Opera and Ballet’s Opera Beyond project that explores the possibilities of new technology for performing arts and develops the digital strategy of the organization.
Having a background in cinema and in communications, Annastina has worked with the new, immersive mediums for several years and holds a major interest also in the larger societal impact of technology and digitalization.
03:00 pm – Presentation: “Opera Beyond – Immersive Technology in Performing Arts”
Jussi Havu
CEO
Glue Collaboration
Jussi Havu is CEO of Glue Collaboration (Helsinki, Finland), a company helping teams around the world to collaborate remotely in more productive and sustainable ways using a cloud-based virtual collaboration platform.
Jussi is a business executive with more than a decade of experience in working for large corporations and start ups around the world in dispersed and high performing teams and now he channels his first-hand experience and understanding of the end user requirements and challenges into the development of Glue.
Prior to Glue, Jussi has been working in various strategy, sales, business development and finance roles both at large corporations like Nokia and Microsoft as well as most recently at automated driving startup Aimotive as their Chief Commercial Officer. Jussi holds a master’s degree in finance from the Aalto University School of Business.
09:15 am – Good Morning From Helsinki: Panel Discussion, participant
Jukka Häkkinen
Research Scientist
University of Helsinki
Jukka Häkkinen received PhD in experimental psychology at the Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. Currently he is Principal Investigator at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, where he leads Visual Cognition Research Group. He is also Docent at Department of Computer Science, Aalto University.
His interests include visual cognition related to stereoscopic and 360-degree videos, visual attention, eye movements, foveation, and user experience and ergonomics of stereoscopic, head-mounted and flexible displays.
10:00 am – Presentation: “XR Perceptual Research”
Sami Jahnukainen
Head of Content
Lyfta Oy
For over 15 years Sami has explored the art of communication through creating, crafting and curating documentary stories in audiovisual media.
11:00 am – Presentation: “Lyfta: Impactful Immersive Storytelling in Education”
Emmi Jouslehto
CEO & Co-founder
Arilyn
Emmi has been living and loving XR since 2013 when Arilyn was founded.
She also has a soft spot for sci-fi and dogs (which are not that far from each other).
04:30 pm – Presentation: “Entering the Holodeck”
Aleksis Karme
CSO, Co-Founder
Teatime Research Ltd.
Chief Science Officer in Teatime Research, Researcher in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Helsinki, Board member in Finnish Virtual Reality Association FIVR, XR Advisor in HXRC.
Paleontologist. Featured in Nature careers. Builds chewing robots with real teeth. 3D modelling, scanning, analysis, photogrammetry, printing, VR/AR – additively for over 70 years.
12:30 pm – Presentation: “Vrifier Co-created”
Urho Konttori
Founder & Chief Product Officer
Varjo
Urho Konttori is founder and chief product officer at Varjo. He was the CEO for the first two years in the company. He is a product innovator and manager who has 15 years of experience in designing, engineering and managing large-scale hardware and software projects at Microsoft and Nokia.
Varjo is forerunner in the VR and XR space, the first company having built fully immersive human eye resolution XR technology, focused purely for the professional market.
09:15 am – Good Morning From Helsinki: Panel Discussion, participant
01:00 pm – Presentation: “Photorealistic Mixed Reality”
Jari Lahti
Head of Innovations
Yle – Finnish Broadcasting Company
Jari Lahti has over 20 years experience of strategic and operational leadership in digitalization at Yle. He is founder of many award winning products and services such as Yle Areena.
His whole career consist of exploring, experimenting, validating and launching new digital opportunities together with the most innovative teams, networks and partners. He is highly experienced transformation leader and now he is focusing to strenghten and scale up innovation capabilities and effectivity at Yle.
04:00 pm – Presentation: “Scale Up Innovation With Yle”
Hannu Lesonen
CEO, Founder
Anarky Labs
Industrial designer, UX specialist and a VR/AR/game enthusiast and creator/maker since the last millenium.
02:30 pm – Presentation: “MR as a disruptor in drones industry”
Mika Luimula
Research Group Leader, Ph.D.
Turku University of Applied Sciences
Dr. Mika Luimula works as a Research Group Leader of Futuristic Interactive Technologies and as a Principal Lecturer of Game and Interactive Technologies for Turku University of Applied Sciences. He holds a PhD in Information Processing Sciences and an MSc in Mathematics. He also holds an Adjunct Professorship at the University of Turku. He is coordinating e.g. Virtual Learning Cluster Finland. In addition, he is a senior advisor to the board of Ade Ltd.
His research interests include gamification, serious games, virtual reality, augmented reality, health informatics and location-aware systems.
He has published around 130 scientific papers and his research group has won various awards in the above mentioned research areas.
12:00 pm – Presentation: “Next generation learning – Utilizing interactive technologies to tackle COVID-19”
Jaakko Mattila
Marketing Manager
Stereoscape
Digital business development expert specialized in VR communication. Passionate to make the potential of new technologies a reality.
10:30 am – Presentation: “How to utilize XR in communication situations”
Meri Miettinen
Creative Designer
Lyfta Oy
Designer and researcher of Lyfta Oy and Aalto University.
11:00 am – Presentation: “Lyfta: Impactful Immersive Storytelling in Education”
Oleg Nikolaenko
Creative Director
AXiiO VR Studio
Oleg Nikolaenko is a theater and multimedia director and producer.
Graduated State Theater Academy, St.Petersburg, Russia. Oleg is the creator of a wide range of projects – from stage performances and multimedia, to TV advertisement and virtual reality projects. With over twenty years of experience directing theatre and shows in France, Greece, Germany, Switzerland, Russia and Finland.
01:30 pm – Presentation: “Narrative and storytelling – VR content with live actors”
Laura Olin
COO & Partner
ZOAN
Laura Olin is partner and Chief Operating Officer of Zoan where she has worked since 2016. Her background is in b2b marketing & business development and journalism.
Zoan is an award-winning XR studio based in Helsinki. The global team of professionals creates real-time 3D to help companies improve their processes.
09:15 am –Good Morning From Helsinki: Panel Discussion, participant
Lilli Paasikivi
Artistic Director
Finnish National Opera and Ballet
Lilli Paasikivi has worked as Artistic Director of the Finnish National Opera since 2013.
In her work, Paasikivi has set out to reshape the structures of opera and to find ways to combine technology with opera. In 2019, Paasikivi launched Opera Beyond – a project which aims to apply new technological possibilities and tools in opera and ballet.
Lilli Paasikivi was engaged as a soloist at the Finnish National Opera from 1998 to 2013. Alongside, she has made a significant international career, performing on the leading opera and concert platforms of the world. Her repertoire varies from Mozart to Wagner side by side with symphonic and contemporary music. Paasikivi was awarded the Pro Finlandia Medal in recognition of her artistic merits in 2008 and the Commander’s Badge by the Order of The Lion of Finland in 2017.
In 2016 Paasikivi founded the Sydänkesän säveliä festival in Kisko, Southwest Finland. She was the artistic director of the Pyhäniemen kartano concert series in 2010-2015.
03:00 pm – Presentation: “Opera Beyond – Immersive Technology in Performing Arts”
Victor Pardinho
CEO
Sense of Space
Victor Pardinho is a media artist, designer and the CEO and co-founder of Sense of Space, a startup working on making volumetric storytelling accessible for digital content creators. His work engages with technology and storytelling, exploring the future of immersive and interactive experiences.
05:30 pm – Presentation: “Sense of Space: Making volumetric holograms accessible for everyone”
Petri Rajahalme
Managing Director
Nordic XR Startups
Petri has been running Nordic XR Startups for the past two years.
NXS is an early stage investment company, investing in early stage XR companies in the Nordics. We currently have a portfolio of 12 companies.
11:30 am – Presentation: “Why I’m excited about XR”
Sebastian Schlecht
Professor of Practice
Aalto University
Sebastian J. Schlecht is Professor of Practice for Sound in Virtual Reality at the Aalto University, Finland. This position is shared between the Aalto Media Lab and the Aalto Acoustics Lab.
His research interests include spatial audio processing with an emphasis on artificial reverberation, synthesis, reproduction, and 6-degrees-of-freedom virtual and mixed reality applications.
In particular, his research efforts have been directed towards the intersection of mathematical filter design, efficient algorithms, perceptual aspects, and sound design.
02:00 pm – Presentation: “Virtual acoustics in 6-degrees-of-freedom”
Olli Sinerma
Senior Advisor
Business Finland
Entertainment Finland lead, government funding advisor for XR and entertainment. Founder and first chairman of FIVR, game developer, producer and comic & cat enthusiast.
09:15 am – Good Morning From Helsinki: Panel Discussion, participant
Tuukka Takala
JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow
Waseda University
Dr. Tuukka Takala is a VR researcher and developer who has worked full-time with VR since 2007. His research focus is in full body avatars, about which he has created multiple novel prototypes. Tuukka has authored 16 peer-reviewed publications on VR, and taught a VR project course for 5 years in Aalto University.
He is currently conducting research at Waseda University in Tokyo, the capital of Virtual YouTubers.
Tuukka is also a co-founder of FIVR and an advisor at Osgenic.
03:30 pm – Presentation: “Avatar Embodiment & Full Body Tracking”
Jan Vapaavuori
Mayor
City of Helsinki
Jan Vapaavuori is the Mayor of Helsinki. He was born in 1965 in the capital. He graduated with a Law degree from Helsinki University in 1989. He continued his education in Helsinki, Upsla, and The Hague. He worked as a law assistant at Helsinki University between 1991 and 1992. His political career began as a secretary in the Parliamentary Group of the National Coalition. He was also the assistant of three ministers in three governments. From 1997 to 2000 he worked at the City Council as chairman of the sports committee.
In 2017 he became mayor of Helsinki. His city development program focuses on healthcare, transport and infrastructure, education, culture and housing, as well as the development of the business environment.
09:00 am – Good Morning From Helsinki: Opening Words