School as a service awarded in innovation competition

School as a Service (SaaS) operating model, developed together by Aalto University and the City of Espoo, has been awarded in the international Quality Innovation Award competition. SaaS is the award winner in the category of education sector 2016.

Good results

The SaaS experimented on the Aalto University campus in Otaniemi has been successful. In August 2016, the Haukilahti Upper Secondary School, Espoo started operating at the campus sharing resources with the University.

The Secondary School students appreciate the new learning environment and experience that it supports their own ways of learning and increases their wellbeing and joy of learning. The students have actively grasped the opportunity to participate in about 50 university courses available for their participation.

The novel school solution originates from a research and development project related to service architecture for teaching which was led by Professor Jarmo Suominen, Aalto University Department of Architecture. Espoo and Aalto University have developed tools for further development, methods to measure the impact and concept for future implementations. Next phases and projects are being planned. The SaaS operating model will also be applied in a similar project to be started in 2017 by Tongji University in Shanghai, China. 

The SaaS concept won also the series of education innovations in the Finnish Quality Innovation Competition in December 2016.

Read more:
Upper secondary school and university learn together