Since 2011, the CTO of the Year Award has been an annual recognition of the importance of Chief Technology officers to the future competitiveness of Finnish industries. The award has two categories: SMEs and Large enterprises. Moreover, for a second year in a row, there will be an award for the Innovation Professor of the Year. The award was set up to increase the recognition of collaboration between academia and companies.
All CTO of the Year nominees were evaluated based on predetermined criteria that considers them as a person, their company, and their societal impact. For innovation professors, the criteria include the following factors: funding portfolio, funding volume, patents, and spinoffs and jobs created.
The finalists in the large companies’ category are Juha Kytölä of Wärtsilä Marine Power, Mats Sundell of Mirka and Simo Säynevirta of ABB Oy.
In the SME category, the finalists are Teemu Kurppa of Oura. Petteri Uusimaa of Modulight and Kuan Yen Tan of IQM Finland.
The finalists for the Innovation Professor of the Year award are Jero Ahola of the LUT University Department of Electrical Engineering, Mircea Guina of Tampere University, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences and Heli Skottman of Tampere University, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology.
The 2022 jury consists of the CTO winners of 2021: Jyrki Ovaska from UPM and Duleepa Wijayawardhana from Supermetrics and the first Innovation Professor of the Year Mikko Möttönen of Aalto University and VTT. The chairperson of 2022 jury is Nina Kopola, Director General of Business Finland and other members of the jury are Jaakko Hirvola, CEO, Technology Industries of Finland, Jorma Turunen, former CEO of Technology Industries of Finland and Tomas Hedenborg, Founder and CEO of Fabel Advisory. Pekka Koponen, Founder and Chairman of Spinverse, served as the Secretary of the jury.
Nina Kopola says: “The finalists of CTO of the Year and Innovation Professor of the Year Awards symbolise the diversity of the Finnish innovation landscape. The candidates demonstrate that our R&I field is active in different technology areas and in different phases of technological development.”
The winners of the CTO of the Year Awards will be announced on Wednesday, 2 March 2022 at the Awards Ceremony, which is part of this spring’s CTO Forum. In addition to the awards ceremony, the event will include a keynote session from Volker Ziegler, Nokia Bell Labs about 6G and European industrial policy, and a panel discussion about Finnish leading companies and ecosystems with insights from Amy Chen, KONE, Heli Antila, Fortum and Juha Kytölä, Wärtsilä.
More information:
Secretary of the CTO of the Year jury: Pekka Koponen, Spinverse Founder and Chairman tel. +358 40 545 0008
CTO Forum is a Finnish community of CTOs. It invites all innovation and technological officers of Finnish companies to network, discuss and share ideas between businesses. CTO Forum’s mission is to promote the work of CTOs and businesses. CTO Forum is organised and the award is handed out by Business Finland, Teknologiateollisuus ry and Spinverse.