Board of Stakeholders

The Board of Stakeholders, which includes representatives from national funding agencies, ministries, large corporations, SME’s, start-ups, and venture capitalists, links the Flagship to both public and private sectors.

This allows PREIN to affect policymaking and receive feedback on industrial needs. The Stakeholders collaborate with the Flagship in thematic events, reports, and annual Board of Stakeholder meetings.

Stakeholder Committee 2022

Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment: Maija Lönnqvist
Business Finland: Reijo Kangas
Venture Capitalist: Timo Ahopelto, Lifeline Ventures
Technology Industries of Finland: Matti Mannonen
Technology Visionary: Risto Linturi
Start-up: Antti Sunnari, Dispelix
Small and medium-sized enterprise: Jyrki Huttunen, Oplatek/Benvenic
Large company – Finland based: Samuli Laukkanen, Vaisala
Large company – Invest-in: Eero Salmelin, Huawei Finland

Timo Ahopelto, Lifeline Ventures

Timo Ahopelto is a serial entrepreneur and a founding partner at Lifeline Ventures collaborating in ecosystem work in Slush, EVA and Solidium. Venture capitalists are private equity investors providing capital to companies with high growth potential in exchange for an equity stake. Lifeline Ventures is an early-stage investor VC supporting resilient founders from the beginning through their growth. Venture capitalists bring about the connection to potential investors in photonics start-ups and early-stage commercialization of photonics innovations.

Jyrki Huttunen, Oplatek/Benvenic

Jyrki Huttunen has been the CEO of Oplatek since 2008. Bevenic Group Oy acquired Oplatek Group in 2022. Huttunen has an extensive experience in the photonics industry and a technical background. Oplatek is a Finnish photonics solutions manufacturer that has a long history spanning almost 40 years. Today Oplatek provides solutions for measurement, laser and lighting devices manufacturing specialty optical fibers and capillaries, molded glass components, thin film coatings, precision mechanics, and optical assemblies for various industries. Oplatek is located in Leppävirta in Eastern Finland.

In the Stakeholder Committee Oplatek/Benvenic represents small and medium sized photonics companies bringing the viewpoint of Finnish photonics industry with an international lookout. Oplatek is also tightly connected to the photonics ecosystem in Eastern Finland.

Reijo Kangas, Business Finland

Reijo Kangas is the Executive Director of Growth Companies in Business Finland and worked already in the predecessor Tekes since 1999. In 2018 Finpro, the Finnish trade promotion organization and Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation merged to form Business Finland.

Business Finland is the Finnish Funding Agency for innovation founded in 2014 to fund public research, development and innovations (RDI). Business Finland funding is available for research, product development, business development as well as bold experiments. Research institutions may apply funding for research that creates significant expertise with potential for economic and social renewal. In addition to funding, Business Finland provides contacts for research organizations and promotes collaboration between research and business.

Samuli Laukkanen, Vaisala

Samuli Laukkanen is Head of Weather Research and Technology, Products and Technologies in Vaisala. He is leading a team of scientists and research/science activities in the Products and Technologies part of Vaisala’s Weather and Environment organization. Optical sensing technologies, both in-situ and remote, are one of the core technologies utilized to measure parameters related to weather and environment.

Vaisala represents large Finnish-based companies that use photonics applications in the products.

Vaisala is a large international company that provides measurement and analysis solutions and devices based on photonics applications. The applications are diverse ranging from pharmaceuticals to data centers and energy production to meteorology and weather, as well as transportation.

Today, Vaisala is a global enterprise with 80 years of experience in environmental, and industrial measurements. Vaisala’s headquarter is in Vantaa, Finland. Read more about Vaisala

Risto Linturi, Technology visionary

Risto Linturi is a serial entrepreneur, futurist with extensive experience in management and board positions in many technology companies. Linturi has participated in high-level expert groups, is a popular keynote speaker in conferences and seminars and has written publications particularly focusing on visionary technical application possibilities of the future.

Linturi has written reports for the Finnish Parliament and for the Committee for the Future. Recent publications include the “Societal transformation 2018-2037: 100 anticipated radical technologies, 20 regimes, case Finland” and “100 opportunities for Finland and the world: Radical Technology Inquirer (RTI) for anticipation/evaluation of technological breakthroughs”. According to Linturi’s calculations photonics is directly a part in 39 % of radical technologies, and the percentage increases if the indirect effect is considered.

Maija Lönnqvist, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment

Maija Lönnqvist works as the Director of the Unit for Skills, Innovation and Renewal at the Ministry of Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. The team is responsible for Innovation policy, including matters related to research and development funding, innovative public procurement, EU RDI and programmes as well as IPRs. On the larger scale, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment is responsible for the policy, legislation and administration of issues related to immigration of workers, entrepreneurs, students and researchers. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment provides a link to innovation and talent attraction policies for the flagship.

Read more about the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment

Matti Mannonen, Technology Industries Finland

Matti Mannonen is the Executive Director in charge of Economic and innovation policy, technological leadership and EU advocacy at Technology Industries of Finland (TIF). TIF represents over 1800 technology companies that do half of Finnish exports and two thirds of private R&D&I investments.

Mannonen works also in the secretariat of Technology Advisory Board that plans and monitors Technology Policy for Finland in the 20’s. Prior to TIF he had a long career in engineering consultancy business, out of which 15 years as the Managing Director of international consulting companies. He has project experience from over 30 countries in Europe, Russia and CIS, Asia and Africa.

Read more about Technology Industries Finland

Eero Salmelin, Huawei

Eero Salmelin has worked as the Director of Imaging and Video Technology at Huawei since 2016 and has an extensive work history in camera and imaging technologies. Huawei is a large multinational enterprise in information and communications technology (ICT) producing consumer electronics such as mobile phones, computers, tablets and smart watches as well as large scale information and communications systems. The Tampere research and development center established in 2016 focuses on the multimedia aspects, imaging and audio. Huawei brings to the Stakeholder Committee the view of large global corporations utilizing photonics in its applications. In addition, Huawei provides a link to the Tampere region imaging ecosystem.

Antti Sunnari, Dispelix

Antti Sunnari is a founder and CEO of Dispelix. Dispelix manufactures diffractive single layer, full-color waveguide displays for mixed reality smart-glasses as well as other AR devices. Dispelix started as a VTT-based photonics start-up founded in 2015 but is now a fast-growing multi-cultural company operating in globally with offices in Espoo, Joensuu and Silicon Valley and with facilities in China and Taiwan. Dispelix offers the insights of a start-up company which has grown to become a successful international photonics company. It also has a connection to PREIN through its history linked to VTT and several of its employees have studies photonics in the PREIN partner universities.