Photo by Aliisa Kokko

Hi, I’m a professional software architect and user interface designer living in Helsinki, Finland. When not working, I also try to take beautiful photographs, enjoy making and preparing good food and coffee, and try to keep my mind and body is shape by walking, biking, yoga and occasional other sports. I live together with my wife in Kallio region, in my opinion the rose of Helsinki (complete with spikes, but also a splendid, full scent and color).

The most important project in my professional life currently is a start-up company Spatineo, which I founded together with Kristian Jaakkola in early 2011. The core business idea of Spatineo is to help data providers in sharing their geospatial information on the Web in highly usable way. As the Chief Technology Officer of Spatineo I’m in charge of the picking the right technical solutions and guiding our software engineering team as we build our super-performant, easy-to-use Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based product line.

My professional career before Spatineo consists of more than 12 years of work experience both in private and public sector of the Finnish information technology industry mainly in software development, architecture and user interface design positions. My previous employers include Stonesoft, Interacta Design, Information Centre of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (Tike) and Finnish Meteorological Institute. For more details see my profile in LinkedIn or download my CV.

I’ve got a Master of Science degree from the University of Helsinki, with computer science as major, physics and mathematics as minor subjects. I graduated from the Department of Computer Science in 2004 after lively and enjoyable student life including student association activities, party arranging and a bunch of good friendships. My master’s thesis from 2003 is online (in Finnish) in case someone would find it interesting. The contents are not that great, but I spent a lot of hours tuning the LaTeΧ configuration, BibTeΧ citations etc, and these files are also there to use under a Creative Commons license.

I’m also a more or less active member of a couple of associations and co-ops. Kulutusjuhla ry is running a consumer blog in Finnish, Prafé Osk owns a youth cafe in Downtown Helsinki, IKI ry provides me with a permanent email address, Osuuskunta eikun.org is where I host web sites MariKoo, Viestimieli and Pauliina Kaasalainen on behalf of their owners.

On this site you can also find travel journals I’ve written during a couple of longer backpack journeys I made in 2005 (Trans-Siberian railway from Moscow to Irkutsk, Mongolia, and through China from Beijing to Hong Kong), and 2007 (Cusco and hiking to Macchu Picchu in Peru, salt desert of Uyuni in Bolivia, and urban city life of Santiago de Chile) with maps and photos.