The last service for university

Dear Friends,

I though long whether to post or not but this is currently the only channel to keep in touch with former academic colleagues abroad (and many of them don't use LinkedIn), so what the heck. I’ll share my story. Yesterday was a big day also for me, let me tell you why. This is a long article, but I always liked to write. Sorry in advance. 

I served for the academy yesterday the last time according to my educated guess. I started in 2003, so it was a long way. Last 8 years (until last June) I lead my research group. Yesterday, I chaired the PhD thesis defence of Janne Ruuskanen, my 6th doctoral student. All the former students have moved on in their careers: Valtteri Lahtinen to a research group in Aalto University on quantum computing, Joonas J?rvel? to the position of measurement wizard in Nokian Tyres, Mika Lyly to high voltage engineering, Tiina Salmi is taking care of heritage since 1983 i.e. she is the group leader now, Erkki H?r? is a game changer in Sweco and now Janne continues research in Paavo Rasilo’s group at Tampere University (TUNI). Well done. I am so proud of you all. Think about this spectrum. You can be anything.

So what happened to me? Answer is at the end, now about the path. Year ago I though I will stay in the academy forever despite efforts of Timo Korpela to change my mind. Thanks for planting the seed. Thinking in hindsight, I didn’t have the guts to leave, I didn't know why I wanted to stay. In a way I was doing too well with my group and people depended on me - but as seen that was not so true as all of them do fine now too. To emphasize, the doing well was not just me, it was team work. However, I did’t really enjoy the work for the last several years at the atmosphere university provided. It all started going to wrong direction when Aki Korpela, the most awarded teacher in the history of Tampere University of Technology, was bullied out (my interpretation, others may disagree).

I surely liked my group and liked the discussions with colleagues like Antonio Morandi, Francesco Grilli (the opponents I had pleasure to invite to Janne's defence), Jeroen van Nugteren and several others. But, in a way, I was in a dead end. I couldn't see economically nor academically viable future or societal impact in superconductor modelling anymore (justified questions). I became uninterested of the academy and university. Acutally, I lost vision. These kind of thoughts gradually grew inside me due to fully failed atmosphere I faced in the university during the past several years. Consequently, I and Valtteri had estranged from modelling that others were doing to our own wicked direction. That was perhaps good. Just read our recent papers and there are still two to appear in 2020. The one accepted this week: A category theoretical interpretation of discretization in Galerkin finite element method in Mathematische Zeitschrift, was an exceptional accomplishment from Valtteri. The other was accepted earlier. However, all the best to those pursuing applied superconductivity. Make the impact. Live your dreams. And best luck to Tiina with Business Finland initiative! Make the impact! There is a chance! But, dear academicians, don't do modelling only for the sake of doing modelling. Everybody in the (HTS) modelling community, ask from yourself, why the world might be better after this research that I am doing?

In April 2019, out of the blue sky I got a possibility to go to an interview to Basware, a Finland originated software company doing global business, for a position I didn’t know existed: Web Architect. Thanks Ari Turjanm?ki for this. Fairly far away from leading a research group in applied superconductivity, but from my point of view this was a perfect match from the beginning. I loved everything I googled about this. I really wanted to do this kind of a thing for living. After interview, these brave people, Baswareans, Olli-Pekka Valtonen and Ville Vainio, said that yes they want another interview though it was ”a little” visible that I never worked in IT business. Of course, I had experience on doing cloud transformation and to manage and develop a 40000 (no extra zeros) user SAAS but that was more like a hobby & deed. I started in Basware after summer holiday 2019.

Finally, I got a job offer and started to study the technologies I was supposed to work with soon. That was/is exciting. I learned like 17 years ago when I read a book on sql and php to implement a fully fledged web portal for Soittorasia, university’s floorball club. Thanks Mikko Hakala for asking me to do that. The same thing only happened in 2009-2011 when I was studying differential geometry. One more thank, thanks for Jussi-Pekka Penttinen for asking me to kick off Osallistujat.com which started my path in real web systems. 

So yesterday Janne graduated, congratulations, a thing I anticipated a year ago, but on Monday I go again to Basware office all in, a thing I couldn’t have guessed a year ago. I enjoy getting up every morning and going to office like my current idol Veijo. During the next five years I’ll learn so much that I’m able to write a book on Accounts Payable, make the world’s best AP solution (no doubt about that, I only work with the best and aim the highest) superior and live happy family life!

Final words:

Be brave, be like Basware ??

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