London office opens, new countries to join HundrED, 10 international HundrED events and prominent new shareholders announced
HundrED is the most significant education program to be a part of Finland’s centennial year of independence celebrations. HundrED aims to seek and share brilliant educational innovations across the globe. Over 200 schools are already taking part in HundrED in Finland alone.
The initial objective of HundrED is to create case studies of 100 Finnish and 100 global innovations in education and share them with the world for free in the fall of 2017.
“Great things are happening in schools in Finland and all around the world that deserve more attention than they are receiving. We want to assist the spreading of these ideas. Our goal is to be the world’s leading expert in education innovation by 2020,” says HundrED’s CEO, Saku Tuominen.
The organization has gathered a great deal of international attention as well. Talks are currently ongoing with five possible countries to launch their own HundrED projects over the next few years.
“Negotiations are taking place in several countries, states and cities. Our goal is to implement HundrED in every continent before the end of the decade,” Tuominen continues.
“In addition, a series of seminars sharing HundrED’s key insights of the project will be organized in fall 2017, covering over 10 major cities all over the world,” says Chairman of the Board Juha Tynkkynen.
To accommodate HundrED’s international reach, the organization has recently opened a London office in the fall of 2016, headed by editor-in-chief Kate Robinson. The international team currently employs three people.
HundrED’s new shareholders
The holding company of the organization, formerly known as SCOOL, will be renamed 'HundrED,' at which time the partnership with Sanoma Ventures will conclude.
“We believe that HundrED can be developed into a world-class concept, but it will require rigorous focus and so we have decided to put all of our attention towards that,” says HundrED’s Chief Operating Officer, Lasse Leponiemi.
Amongst these changes, HundrED has welcomed several new shareholders. Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen and Mikko Kodisoja, and Lifeline Ventures’ Petteri Koponen and Timo Ahopelto have joined the organization.
“We are involved in the organization as private persons and do not seek profit through our investments. Our interests lie in the sharing of excellent ideas and innovations in education. That is enough for us,” Ilkka Paananen comments.
“One key character of HundrED is that it’s not a hierarchical project, instead all innovations are shared from teacher to teacher. This democratization of teaching and learning interests me a lot. The possible investment profit is secondary in this case,” says Petteri Koponen, Partner of Lifeline Ventures.
For more information:
Saku Tuominen
saku@hundred.org