Fulbright-Hays - Speakers for the Capital Region

Birger Holm currently works as a Vice Principal, History and Civics Teacher at Haukilahti School in Espoo. He is the U.S. State Department’s Voluntary Visitor Program alumnus and has promoted interdisciplinary studies in Finland by inspiring English teachers to introduce more U.S. History content in English classes.

Hi, I'm Essi Isoaho, and I work as a daycare director for the City of Vantaa. I have 15 years of experience in early childhood education, and I have been a daycare director for 6 years. I completed my bachelor's degree at the University of Helsinki and am currently finishing my master's degree at the University of Jyväskylä with a major in early special education. My job involves managing three daycare centers together with another daycare director.

In my free time, I enjoy golfing; the long summer evenings in Finland allow for playing late into the evening. Traveling is also a part of my leisure time, and I strive to visit new places whenever possible.

I look forward to visits with great enthusiasm; it's always wonderful to create new connections and share thoughts about early childhood education.

Special Education Teacher in Sompio School, Kerava, Finland. Master's Degree in Education from University of Jyväskylä. Certification in Educational Administration from Finnish National Agency for Education. Professional focus on supporting motivation and school engagement, flexible teaching methods and incorporating technology into both administrative tasks and teaching. Strong believer in the importance of continuous professional development.

PhD Kari Kivinen, the Education Outreach Expert of the EUIPOObservatory, leads the Intellectual Property in Education project and Network, which promotes creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and responsible digital engagement among young Europeans. He has over 30 years of work experience in teaching and management of international and multicultural schools in Finland, Luxembourg, and Belgium.

In his free time, he has led the Finnish FaktabaariEDU (NGO) project, and he has e.g. edited the Digital Information Literacy Guide as part of EDMO Nordis project.

He was a member of the DG EAC expert group on Tackling disinformation and promoting digital literacy through education and training, which published their Final Report and Guidelines for teachers in October 2022. He has also collaborated with Joint Research Centre in developing new competences for DigComp 2.2.

Currently he combines his work in the EUIPO with lecturing on digital information literacy, Artificial Intelligence, Intellectual Property education, and curriculum development

Teijo Koljonen holds a Master of Science degree from the University of Helsinki. He has worked as a teacher, deputy-head and head of school. Currently he is working in the Finnish National Agency for Education as a Senior Adviser in Education with issues related to national curriculum development, teaching of STEM subjects, assessment criteria for learning outcomes and evaluation of grant applications.

The Finnish National Agency for Education is the national development agency responsible for early childhood education and care, pre-primary, primary and secondary education as well as for adult education and training.

Henna Kurki supports Sitra's work on inspiring Finnish citizens to live more sustainably within the carrying capacity of the planet. Her specific area of interest lies in identifying the barriers and opportunities involved in shifting habits towards sustainability. Henna is a part of Sitra’s Nature and Daily Life and PSLifestyle teams.

Sari Laine is a member of the Sustainable everyday life team at Sitra. Her main focus is understanding how people are inspired to make changes and how small actions can become habits. She is passionate about finding agile ways to test new operating models through experimentation and gaining a better understanding of what motivates individuals to make their everyday lives more sustainable. With years of experience in human-centric design, Sari has developed various activities and has a strong interest in the culture of experimentation, sustainable development, and grassroots-level change. She has previously worked as a business management consultant, using design thinking to improve working life. Sari has studied at Lappeenranta University of Technology and the University of Cambridge.

At the Finnish National Agency for Education, my main responsibility is to develop the national core curricula in philosophy and worldview studies in primary and secondary education. Furthermore, I coordinate international cooperation in global education (e.g. as the national coordinator of the UNESCO Associated Schools' network). Finally, my third speciality is to enhance equity and equality planning in the Finnish education system. Besides, I am working part-time as censor on the Matriculation Examination Board, which is a separate unit of the Finnish National Agency for Education.

Dushyant Manchandia supports Sitra’s work on inspiring Finnish citizens to live more sustainably. His aim is to make the methods created at Sitra accessible to organisations globally, to turn sustainable lifestyles into the new normal and enable millions of people to create their own version of well-being within planetary limits. He is from New Delhi, India and has been involved in hands-on work related to plastic waste, electronic waste and the creation of a circular economy in the country. He holds a master’s degree in environmental management and policy from the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics, Lund University, Sweden.

Mikko Salo is Faktabaari (FactBar) co-founder, and member of the European Commission expert groups on online disinformation and medialiteracy. In 2014 Mikko founded the many times awarded (Bonnier, Chydenius, Europcom) fact-checking service, to bring accuracy to the election debates. Since then, he has worked at European level with media industry, (journalism) schools, media educators, scientists and voluntary crowds for pedagogical and engaging Faktabaari and NewsBeez digital media concepts. Currently he is engaged with Faktabaari team on new @FactBar EDU information literacy approach to build digital resilience: www.factbar.eu/edu

Anna Talasniemi is professional in arts and culture currently pursuing a PhD on sauna and heritage futures at University of Jyväskylä (art education). For a long time, she worked as Executive Director at Kone Foundation, one of the major private arts and research funders in Finland. She is a co-founder of Seurasauna project, which aims at establishing a new public sauna in Seurasaari folk park in Helsinki, and she has also studied traditional sauna healing.