Aalto University to increase co-operation in the field of digital services
02.06.2010
Tieto and Aalto University are increasing co-operation in the research and innovation of digital financial management and mobile commerce. These areas are among the leading projects of Aalto Service Factory during 2010–2011. The aim of the collaboration projects is to generate high standard research and to meet the demands of trade and industry.
Collaboration research projects include the Real Time Economy (RTE) programme and its sister project Mobile Financial Services (MoFS). RTE aims to make financial management processes and services digital and real-time. MoFS focuses on the research of mobile commerce and payment and banking services. The projects form a separate theme group in a centre for service excellence called Aalto Service Factory.
“The theme group seeks to carry out academically high-level research and to be of service to trade and industry. Therefore, close co-operation with the business sector is important. In particular, Tieto’s competence in producing digital services as well as the wide digital expertise at Aalto University of Technology bring needed relevance to research,” says co-ordinator Heikki Lempinen from Aalto University.
“RTE and MoFS are interesting areas for researchers and promote the University’s goal to produce research data that is of use to different parties. Projects for digital services also meet the requirements of sustainable development and have collected different players around the same table to promote the entire business world,” says Virpi Tuunainen, Director of Aalto Service Factory.
“Finland has traditionally been a global laboratory in the development of new payment services, digitalised banking services, and electronic identification and invoicing services. We have been actively involved in EU projects and international ISO standardization work. Co-operation between Tieto and Aalto raises our target level even higher; we want to develop a leading centre for research, excellence and training into these areas,” says Bo Harald, Tieto’s internationally renowned expert in electronic invoicing.
The most recent achievement of the RTE programme is the reporting code set jointly carried out with the Association of Finnish Accounting Firms, based on a vision of future integrated financial management. In particular, the code set facilitates reporting to the authorities. Next on the agenda is to model a solution for companies’ mandatory reporting of personnel and payroll administration and to develop new services utilising companies’ e-invoices.
The MoFS project focuses on developing and testing secure and flexible banking and payment service solutions. The aim is to find mobile solutions suitable for extensive use, for example for public transport and banking services. Research and development targets in the next phase include mobile payment, easy user identification in conjunction with electronic services, electronic document storage and signature and wider use of tickets used with the mobile phone.
“In addition to co-operation in research, we need to recruit top-level experts from Aalto University to Tieto. We have therefore also agreed to make Tieto a visible employer to students in the Töölö and Otaniemi university campuses as well as to offer possibilities for diploma work and master’s thesis for the students,” says Ari Karppinen, Country Head of Finland at Tieto.
For further information, please contact:
Bo Harald, Director, Tieto
tel. +358 50 6 4101, bo.harald [at] tieto [dot] com
Tuija Lompolojärvi, Project Manager, RTE, Tieto
tel. +358 44 051 8689, ext.tuija.lompolojarvi [at] tieto [dot] com
Mikko Erkkilä, Project Manager, MoFS, Tieto
tel. +358 40 771 5378, mikko.erkkila [at] tieto [dot] com
Virpi Tuunainen, Professor, Director, Aalto Service Factory
tel. +358 50 589 7541, virpi.tuunainen [at] hse [dot] fi
Heikki Mannila, Vice Principal
tel. +358 50 511 2913, heikki.mannila [at] aaltouniversity [dot] fi
Aalto University is a new multidisciplinary science and art community in the fields of science, economics, and art and design. The new university is founded on Finnish strengths, and its goal is to develop as a unique entity to become one of the world's top universities. The cornerstones of Aalto University are its strengths in education and research.
In the new university, there are 20 000 basic degree and graduate students as well as a staff of 4500 of which 300 are professors. The total budget for 2009 was close to € 368 million. In 2009, a total of 1 567 Master's Degrees and 180 Doctorates were completed in the three universities. The number of alumni totals 75 000.
