Comparing Finnish and British Education: Does Diversity Matter?

Ilari Lovio from the Finnish Institute blogs about education and diversity, raising some questions that will also be tackled in forthcoming seminars.

Finnish education has recently gained substantial attention and interest among politics, policy makers, and the general public in countries such as the United Kingdom and USA. This interest is largely due to Finland’s success in the OECD’s PISA studies, where Finnish students have achieved top ranking results. Consequently, the questions frequently repeated during the last couple of years have been: How is it possible that this small northern nation came to be an educational superpower in just a few decades? And further: Is it possible for other countries to copy the magic recipe?

Defining Open Design as an Open Knowledge Domain

Massimo Menichinelli of Aalto Media Factory writes about open design and the second Open Data meet-up in Helsinki.

As Kat Braybrooke wrote one month ago, the discussion about Open Knowledge has already started in Finland with a great involvement of people. During the first meet-up of the Open Knowledge Foundation held in Helsinki we had so many interesting ideas and discussions that we decided to organize at least another meet-up in January. Furthermore, we decided to focus this second meet-up on one specific topic of the Open Knowledge universe, Open Design.

Broadband access is a human right. Then what?

 Burcu Baykurt and Minna Aslama Horowitz blog about the importance of a broadband access as a part of knowledge society.

German historian Gerhard Oestreich (1968) says one could see in every basic right the aims of the political and social ordering. As the global discourse on civil and human rights moves toward a more democratic direction, one can easily trace the evolution in communication rights starting with the emphasis on the freedom of expression in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) to the more inclusive forms of communication such as the right to have access to information or the right to communicate. With the normalization of the Internet in daily life, the rights-based approach to ICTs becomes more critical on a global as well as national level. Not only the recent protests in Tahrir or Wall Street that use multiple and advanced tools of technology to challenge the established power, but also growing public interest and concerns about our rights in the so-called cyberspace (privacy, copyright, freedom of expression to name a few) confirm Oestreich’s view about the relationship between rights and the political/social order.

Open Data Monthly Review 01/2012

A review of latest news and blog posts in the field of open data.

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Amplifying Social Wellbeing by Design

Alastair Fuad-Luke and Kirsi Haikio from Aalto University blog about changes in design

The School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University organised first workshop in London together with The Finnish Institute, as part of the 365 Wellbeing project for the Helsinki World Design Capital 2012, in order to share learning about designing for wellbeing. It was the first of the series of international seminars discussing 365 Wellbeing project as it evolves.

The Proposed ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ Could Be a Threat to the Freedom of Speech

Mikael Järvelin from the Finnish Institute blogs about the latest news on The United States' war against online piracy.

Last Wednesday, the January 18th, the English Wikipedia and many other significant websites blacked out for 24 hours. The blackout was a protest against The United States house bill, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and senate bill, PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act), which have been put forward to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. The Proposals would ban advertising on the allegedly infringing websites, bar search engines from linking to these sites and order Internet service providers to prohibit access to these sites. The proposal would also criminalize streaming of forbidden content with a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

A Londoner’s Experience of the First Open Knowledge Meetup in Finland

Community Coordinator of Open Knowledge Foundation, Kat Braybrooke blogs about the first open knowledge meetup in Finland.

Last month in Helsinki, four Finns, a Russian and a Canadian huddled anxiously around a desk at Aalto University's School of Economics with a fleet of glowing laptops, finishing last-minute prep for the first Open Knowledge Finland meetup and hoping a few brave souls would show up. A few hours, 80 participants and many intriguing discussions later, I stopped in the midst of a conversation to reflect upon the inspiring Finns around me - and I realised I had witnessed the start of a movement.

Open Data Monthly Review 12/2011

A review of latest news and blog posts in the field of open data.

A Christmas Carol 2011, or How the Ghost of Open Data Showed Finland the Future

Institute's Fellow Antti Halonen writes about open data development in finland and encourages people to use their data wranging skills for the good of society and democracy. 

Last few weeks have been truly remarkable in terms of the development of open data in Finland.

In midst of the on-going discussion in the UK on the necessity and feasibility of Public Data Corporation (or Public Data Group, as it is apparently called nowadays) and potential setbacks that might cause for open data, Finland has taken bold steps towards opening up their data sets.