WiT Talks: Bridging Capacities - Universities and organizations partnering for Global Development
As part of the WiT (World in Transition) Programme at Aalto University, we invite you to a thought-provoking session exploring Problem-Based Learning (PBL) as a transformative approach to education and societal impact. This talk will focus on how PBL methodologies are being used to address complex, real-world challenges in the Global South—where context-sensitive, collaborative problem-solving can lead to sustainable and meaningful outcomes.
Through compelling case studies and practical insights, we will examine how interdisciplinary teams, local partnerships, and experiential learning contribute to co-creating solutions that are both innovative and equitable. Whether you are a student, educator, researcher, or practitioner, this session offers an opportunity to rethink how learning environments can foster agency, empathy, and real-world impact across diverse global contexts.
Keynote Speaker
Riina Subra
Riina Subra is a Senior Manager at Aalto University’s Global Engagement team / Leadership Support Services. During her years at the university, she has led the Aalto Global Impact team, which developed Aalto’s education, research, innovation and capacity building partnerships with universities in the Global South, and coordinated various national and international initiatives related to strategic support to research and innovation.
Subra has over 20 years’ experience in international relations and diplomacy, global development policy and academic co-creation and innovation. She has worked at UNDP and Unesco headquarters and country offices, developed national and EU-level capacity-building projects connecting Aalto schools with HEIs in Africa, Asia and Latin America and served as PI for several global education development projects. Her work at Aalto has focused on developing both institutional level strategies and concrete activities to mainstream sustainable development and partnerships, and to deepen intercultural dialogue and global competencies of faculty and students in Finland and in partner countries.
Panelists
Xiaoqi Feng
Xiaoqi Feng is a Specialist at Aalto University’s Co-Educators’ Team, where she supports the integration of cross-cutting themes such as sustainability, radical creativity, and an entrepreneurial mindset into curriculum development. Prior to this role, she worked as a doctoral researcher at Aalto since 2020, focusing on how students and educators engage in transformative learning when tackling complex, real-world challenges in problem-based learning settings. Xiaoqi takes an evidence-based approach to education, providing support to both teachers and students to foster reflective, creative, and collaborative learning.
Osku Haapasaari
Osku Haapasaari is a project specialist at Finland Futures Research Centre (FFRC) and doctoral researcher at Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning and Education (CELE), University of Turku. His research concerns the discourses, epistemes and power relations that underlie international higher education partnerships, especially ones between the Global South and the Global North. Other research interests include problem-based learning, online and blended learning, critical pedagogy and futures literacy.
Moderator
Saija Hollmén
Professor of Practice in Humanitarian Architecture Architect, D.Sc. (Arch) Expert in Humanitarian Architecture and Interdisciplinary Pedagogies
