Who?
We joined the Aaltoes ecosystem roughly at the same time, and went down the rabbit hole right away. The vision is built by both — Annika and Nuutti, and Annika is running to be the former of the board.
The foundation has been set…
Got 100+ new enthusiastic people into the ecosystem
Organized the first community event for 30+ participants
Co-organized Ignite Demo Day for 400+ participants
Hosted large and small events, for the public and community
Got 4900+€ worth of event sponsorships
Preached Aaltoes to freshmen and other new faces, in Startup Sauna and events like Startup World
and much more
We went head first and did all this in a matter of months. Imagine what we can accomplish in a year…
FAQs about Annika
*
FAQs about Annika *
-
When I was little, my parents told me never to become an entrepreneur. Both of them were sole entrepreneurs in a challenging, seasonal field. Still, I’ve always been curious and never wanted to fit into a box. I explored my hobbies freely — from synchronized swimming to horseback riding, from Kyudo to various dance styles.
I applied to Otaniemi Upper Secondary School, even though no one from my previous school went there, and became one of the 400 originals starting fresh after the merger of Pohjois-Tapiola and Olari. Around the same time, I joined a competitive dance team.
After a demanding but rewarding journey in upper secondary school, I graduated with honors and three scholarships, which gave me the freedom to choose my next step without worrying about exams. I decided to take a break and spend three and a half months in Spain working as an au pair, making international friends, and exploring Spanish cities. Not long after that, my friend and I, two 19-year-old girls, were preparing to leave for Marrakech and the Sahara in Morocco.
Eventually, I felt ready to study again and was accepted into the School of Business at Aalto University, after a long consideration between social psychology and business.
Fast forward to today: I’m completing my Bachelor’s in Business with a major in Management, co-creating a startup product course from scratch, organizing events and building community at Aaltoes, working part-time in CRM, business strategy, and social media — all while performing and competing internationally with my dance team. I’ve always wanted to build something of my own and walk my own path, and somewhere along the way, that led me toward the field of entrepreneurship. Sorry, Mom and Dad.
I guess some things never change… I still follow my curiosity wherever it leads.
-
We’ve been super active in Aaltoes this fall and ended up taking on more responsibility pretty quickly. When the elections started to approach, we just knew we had to go for it. We’d noticed the same pain points and challenges and got genuinely excited about the idea of fixing them.
So, why run together? It’s simple: one of our biggest values is staying united. We started this journey as a team, and after thinking about it, we realized that instead of running against each other with the same goals, we’d be way more effective by joining forces.
We thought a lot about who should officially apply to form the board, and in the end, we decided it would be me. But that doesn’t change the fact that we’ll combine our strengths to build a team that gets things done, communicates well, and still remembers to have fun while doing it.
-
My journey to Aaltoes was part coincidence and part a leap of faith. I first applied to Ignite as a solo founder and made it to the final round. During the process, for the first time, I felt like I had found my people. I was instantly inspired by the drive, ambition, and creativity of the applicants and alumni. When I didn’t get in, it wasn’t the program I missed, it was the people around it.
I wasn’t ready to let it go completely. Somehow, I found my way to Aaltoes and filled out the volunteer form, hoping it would bring me closer to the community I had just discovered. And it did. Everything started to click when I was asked to help organize the Ignite Demo Day.
Like I mentioned before, I’ve always been passionate about entrepreneurship, but before this, I had no idea where to start or anyone to guide me. By taking matters into my own hands, I gained more than I ever expected. In such a short time, Aaltoes has given me opportunities, friends, and support, and most importantly the courage and inspiration to dream big and take action.
-
I believe the real power comes from the community, not the board. 5-6 people on the board with their ideas will always achieve less than 500 plus members with their unique skills and perspectives. My goal would be to make sure the community can shine, to see the big picture, and to turn everyone’s energy into a shared vision, rather than wasting it on ego-driven purposes.
With a background in business management and leadership studies, plus hands-on experience with startups, I see myself as a bridge between different stakeholders. I plan, I organize, and I lead by example. I’ve seen it over and over: leadership isn’t about sitting on a pedestal, it’s about understanding what’s happening at the grass level and making sure everyone can contribute, grow, and succeed together.
-
When I visited Italy, I tasted the most amazing traditional Italian pizza with Prosciutto ham, walnuts, honey, caramelized onion and burrata mozzarella… Still dreaming of that.
FAQs about Nuutti
*
FAQs about Nuutti *
-
Hey, I’m Nuutti, probably a familiar face to people that hang around in the co-working space and for the 100+ new volunteers I’ve had the pleasure to help integrate in the Aaltoes ecosystem.
Before a brief history on how I ended up here let’s look at what I’m doing now.
Working in a Finnish startup (MailMoo) from January this year. Focusing on Growth & Sales
Community manager at Aaltoes
Studying business at Aalto
I’m originally from the countryside. I lived in a city of 13k people called Kauhajoki in South Ostrobothnia. Yeah.. for 20 years. Now I’m living in Espoo and studying business at Aalto.
I’ve always been curious about business and how people actually make money. From very early on.
When I was 6 years old I heard that someone was building a windmill in our forest. I started immediately asking about how much money those things make and why they even build them. I came to a conclusion: just put up a couple of windmills and you can basically sleep and get money forever (fact checked from mom).
I remember also collecting coins and always saving, filling up my piggy bank. I rarely bought anything. When I was out as an Easter witch(trulli) I asked for money instead of candy. I guess business studies were the obvious choice for me.
Aalto was a no-brainer for me and a big reason was the startup ecosystem here. I thought that if one wanted to become wealthy or successful, they must build a company (because salaries get taxed too much) and to start a company you need an idea, a team and a lot of knowledge on how to actually run and build a business.
So, I came here. Now I have surrounded myself with people who have similar passions.
-
Last year I was an active events-goer. I attended all kinds of different Aaltoes events. Even when coming here alone I many times left with a new friend and great insights. I wanted to come back. I wanted to get immersed even further. I want to become an entrepreneur some day and I thought that if I just say ‘yes' to new opportunities here it will get me to places where I feel like I can really grow.
So I went and volunteered on one event. It was kind of hard to know what opportunities there were to volunteer but I happened to notice one opportunity from a Aaltoes telegram bot. There, I talked to a board member and said I want to do more. I soon got the role Community Manager and since then I’ve been mainly looking at opportunities for the new people who want to enter the world of Aaltoes but I’ve also been helping organize events (like explore Aaltoes, Ignite Demo Day, Startup Crawl) and doing some mostly on my own (Day for Failure, info events for people interested), getting speakers to events (like Kristo Ovaska) and sponsors for amazing prizes (Marimekko) and overall just hanging out in this space, meeting new people and learning new every day.
Also I took responsibility from the beginning when I got a proper role. I’ve been mainly working with Head of Ecosystem to go through hundreds of eager applicants, conducted interviews to understand what people want to do in Aaltoes, created an ecosystem chat for 2025, formed an event team and community marketing team. Then I realized that the community team needs more active people. So I did something about it. Onboarded two more members to it and now we’ve hosted several community events that have successfully created a sense of belonging.
Mind you all this happened in just a couple of months after I wanted to be a more active member here.
-
I got to know Annika through Aaltoes. Basically it really didn’t matter what the occasion was. All the way from organizing Demo Day in the summer and hosting a fireside-chat with Kristo Ovaska, to staying up at midnight carrying chairs and cleaning up Startup Sauna, I always saw Annika there. She was a very active member like myself and I admire the effort she put in everyday.
Towards the end of the year after getting a huge green light from the current community to push for board, we started discussing this seriously.
We realized that our plans for 2026 looked very similar so we decided to combine our forces.
-
I think like an entrepreneur, so I like to move fast, focus on creating value and finding clever opportunities. Creating concepts, events and projects that serve people wanting to explore entrepreneurship are some things I look forward to doing.
1. Understand what is needed 2. do it once 3. through feedback polish/iterate/scrap the idea.
For example I noticed that for almost all people who enter the ecosystem for the first time, they felt it was hard to grasp how to get in and move in the ecosystem. So should we just keep it like so or actually do something to revive the community? Well, I wasn’t going to wait and hope it would magically change. A quick notion page with all relevant information and what next steps to take. Put it behind a QR code and spread posters like crazy. With this we were able to capture 70+ new people interested in the ecosystem.
By talking to people, understanding what they aspire and solving ways to get there through Aaltoes gives me the kicks. I’m pretty fresh in the ecosystem but for me why I kept coming back here was because 1. Aaltoes has huge potential and I want to make sure everyone sees it and 2. Aaltoes is a playground of infinite learning. The notion page wasn’t enough, so Annika and I hosted a informational evening for 30+ new people. Half of them were here till 10pm and me +3 ended up staying the entire night talking business, doing business and setting up next steps to move forward.
Small victories like these keep me going, but next year it’s time to really push the pedal down.
-
Has to be Diavola from who the f*** is Alice. Trust me I am an expert by now. Thanks mega-volunteer Nethmee for introducing me to it!
