David Leal Martinez

"I came to Otaniemi to do the last year of the Spacemaster programme in 2009. During that year, I felt Finland was very different from the rest of the world, starting with the ‘No Siesta, but Yes Coffee’ approach to productivity. Still, Otaniemi is quite unique when compared to the rest of Finland. I will never forget the traffic sign reading ‘Muu Suomi’ (‘the rest of Finland’) put up by the Teekkari students where you leave the student village. But, only now, seven years later, do I fully understand its meaning. This is thanks to times like the day when someone came to me and said ‘David, I have this challenge. We have to prove some top industry executives that we can build a humanoid robot in five weeks, starting right now, so that it can sell equipment in a fair in Germany.’ And we succeeded in it."

David Leal Martinez, ElectroShop Manager, Design Factory