Special Seminar: Kimmo Karhu "Digital Platform Economy and its Interplay with Physical Reality"

Digital Platform Economy and its Interplay with Physical Reality

Kimmo Karhu

Abstract:

Increasing digitalization has significantly shaped society and businesses in recent decades. As a part of that, the rise of the platform economy—as exemplified by Amazon, Google, Facebook, and alike—has been phenomenal. As a consequence, software engineering, the practice of “digitizing”, is challenged as it is conducted in an increasingly platformized and ecosystemic environment. My research focuses on understanding the implications of digitalization and digital platforms to society and businesses including the software engineering practice itself. My earlier research has covered questions such as: How boundary resources can be used to manage distributed software development by vast amount of third-party software developers? How too wide openness and properties of digital can also promote negative outcomes in the form of platform forking? In the future, through developments in AI, digital performs increasing amount of activities in businesses and our society, which still are and will be very much physical. In my upcoming research, I aim to explore the ways how digital and physical resources can be successfully embedded together to leverage growth. Finally, there is yet another fundamental change around the corner in regards to digitalization: quantum computing. I believe, it is time for software engineering research to explore the implications of quantum computing to software development practice and the society at large.

Bio:

Kimmo Karhu is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Computer Science, Aalto University. Kimmo received his doctoral degree in the field of Information Systems and Services from Aalto University in 2017. In his interdisciplinary research, Kimmo combines software engineering research with business-oriented strategic management perspective. His special expertises are digital platforms, open-source licensing, and blockchains. Kimmo also acts actively in industry by having a part-time position at Fourkind to advice firms in platform strategy and through lecturing in various Aalto Executive Education programs. Overall, Kimmo has over ten years of business experience, including being VP of Product Development at Medicel. His research has been published in leading international journals including Information Systems Research, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, and Telematics and Informatics.