Suurlähettiläs Timo Rajakankaan puhe Future Talk –tapahtumassa (Bern, 6.11.2020)

Suurlähettiläs Rajakangas piti Embassy Hostin ominaisuudessa puheen teemalla tekoäly konferenssin kolmantena päivänä.

Dear Future Talk participants, ladies and gentlemen,

Two years ago my country had the honour to be invited as the special guest country to the Worlddidac education exhibition and conference held here in Berne and then our focus was on lifelong learning. I am happy to see that the good collaboration started then between Finland and the Worlddidac continues this year within the framework of the Future Talk event created by Worlddidac. It is indeed with great pleasure and excitement that the Embassy of Finland is hosting the third day of the Future Talk today with the focus on Artificial Intelligence.

For the Finnish Embassy in Switzerland AI is a natural and very appropriate topic as both Finland and Switzerland are world leaders in the field of AI. Our two countries are natural and close partners and in the field of AI we will surely find avenues for even further fruitful co-operation.

Dear participants,

What is sure about the future in the short as well as in the longer run is that we face great challenges, and uncertainty is probably the best word to describe what is to come. A pandemic is raging across the globe, the world economy is on its knees and the climate change overshadows our whole existence.

However, how gloomy as our future may seem, we have all the reason to believe that as before at troubled times the challenges will be overcome , and in that equation the incredible strides of the past decades in technology – such as the gigantic leaps in AI - will play a decisive role. Once again, the challenges will call us to excel as problem solvers, and the key to success is the same as it was yesterday, as it is today and it will be in the future: education.

During her whole existence as a nation Finland has put a great emphasis on education. It has been the natural choice for a small nation that just over 100 years ago gained her independence as a primarily agrarian country with hardly any natural resources. From early on it was realized that the people are our most valuable asset and our only chance to succeed was to invest in them.  Our education system was built on the principle of providing for a solid basic education for every child regardless of economic background or place of birth. Over the years we have been able to realize a remarkable return on our investment in people as, for example, proven by the remarkable scores of Finnish schoolchildren in the well-known PISA-studies.

During her whole existence as a nation Finland has put a great emphasis on education.

The most recent proof of the success of our education system was the score given to Finland last week in the Economist’s Worldwide Education for the Future Index: Finland ranked as number one. This index measures how well countries prepare their youth for the challenges of the future at work and in life - in terms of digital skills, creativity, communication, social skills and critical thinking. I was also glad to notice that Finland finished at the top for the income-adjusted ranking, which shows that providing your youth with the best education is not just about resources but about dedication, the right approach and vision.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Finland is known not only for its success in education but also as a country of high-technology and innovation. Obviously there is a link between the two: success in education and success in innovation. To world-fame in this regard Finland began to rise in the 1980’s/90’s when for the first time a technological consumer product - Nokia mobile phones - advanced rapidly to a market leader position all across the world. Nokia’s success brought with it of course immediate economic benefits to Finland but perhaps even more important for the longer term was that Nokia served as a kind of a training platform, or if you like, breeding ground, for IT specialists. These highly specialized innovative professionals went after the Nokia boom on to use their expertise, experience and know-how to start new businesses and so one of the most flourishing start-up scenes in Europe emerged in Finland at the beginning of the new millennium.

Finland is known not only for its success in education but also as a country of high-technology and innovation.

The Finnish universities quickly realized that they could support such a development by offering start-up programs for their students and today there is no lack of such opportunities in the Finnish education institutes.

One of the most successful start-up companies that grew out of these support programs originated from the Aalto University. It is SLUSH – a student-driven company that excels in bringing together start-ups and investors from all over the world to a leading start-up conference that takes place in Helsinki every November. Slush has grown from a 300-person assembly in 2008 to a community of a truly global magnitude with more than 20 000 visitors at each annual gathering. The mission of Slush is to create and help the next generation of groundbreaking entrepreneurs. The success of SLUSH has been recognized also here in Switzerland. I am very happy that the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation is today an active partner of Slush supporting dozens of Swiss start-ups in participating at SLUSH and thereby having become part of this worldwide start-up ecosystem.

Dear participants,

Let me come back to what Worlddidac is all about: education.

For Future Talk perhaps the most relevant and interesting start-up ecosystem that has grown rapidly in Finland in the last ten years or so is the digital edtech platform ecosystem. It is a program aiming at supporting the renewal of the Finnish top-level education system by benefitting from the innovation capacity of education and technology companies, which in turn creates new business opportunities for the companies concerned.

If there is one thing that the Corona crisis has clearly brought about in the field of education it is the realization that the digital disruption has started. The experiences made during the crisis have certainly prepared the ground for the digital transition in education. We in Finland welcome this change and we stand ready for it. We have a lot of promising educational technology companies with a strong pedagogic competence. In addition, we have a lot of competence within ICT, 5G, augmented reality, cyber security, block chain and AI technology. We have world-class teachers and a world-class administration who wish to further the digitalisation. We have already invested in building platform solutions learning analytics and ecosystems such as the digital edtech platform ecosystem.

As we Finns truly believe in the power of collaboration and partnerships, both nationally and internationally, we are ready to share our know-how with the world. A good example of our preparedness to share and partner has to do with the topic of today: AI.

As we Finns truly believe in the power of collaboration and partnerships, both nationally and internationally, we are ready to share our know-how with the world.

Adhering to the Finnish inclusive education approach the University of Helsinki in co-operation with a Finnish IT company Reaktor has made a couple of years ago the online course Elements of AI available for everyone, free of charge. Last year during Finland’s EU Presidency we made the course available for all Europeans by translating it into all EU languages.

As AI influences the lives of us all we firmly believe that the knowledge of this technology should be available for everyone for the sake of democracy. The first course has already been a success with over 500 000 attendees and we hope the new course ,“Building AI” ,launched last month will inspire many more. You can find both courses on the website elementsofai.com!

Dear Future Talk participants,

In my welcoming remarks I have tried to highlight the Finnish approach to education, its relation to our capability to tackle the challenges of today and the future, and its relation to innovation and successful startup ecosystems, some of which then again play a key role in preparing our education systems to continue to be relevant in the age of digitalization and artificial intelligence. Once again, we wish to share these experiences of ours with the world community and I find Future Talk to be an ideal platform in this regard allowing for interaction between all parties committed to preparing the young generation for the challenges of the new normal in the 21st century.

I wish you all a successful and interesting afternoon with Future Talk – a talk that is bound to continue in the future!