Aleksandr
is an enthusiastic explorer of anything that concerns layouts on the
Web. Considerable experience in digital design has built his
interests that lie in between technology, organisation, and design.
Having spent many years in teaching what he’s passionate about to
university students, Aleksandr has also worked with numerous clients
as a web designer and front end developer. His particular focus now
is on design systems, though he still likes to tinker
around and push good old CSS to the limit. He’s also a strong
proponent of usability and accessibility in both UIs and
physical environments.
Axel has built accelerators and innovation departments focusing on new products and their business models e.g. from the inside for the biggest global insurance company and outside for the second largest investment company, FinTechs and successfully for his own startup ventures. He heads innovation programs with the aim to establish a human-centered, interdisciplinary process that creates desirable and sustainable changes in behavior and form – of individuals, systems and organizations – often for socially progressive outcomes. Design, in his experience, is about applying contextual skills in non-traditional territories, which then yield non-traditional, creatively designed outputs; i.e., new roles, new organizations, new systems, and disruptive business models can be formed.As a true “hybrid” he holds an degree in Engineering, a Master of Fine Arts, and an Executive MBA from China, Japan and the US. He lectures at programs like Google’s Digital Academy or currently at the Pi School for Artificial Intelligence in Rome and is part of the Singularity University in Silicon Valley.
Christina
is the founder and Managing Director of Miltton Sparks Oy. She holds a Ph.D. in
Marketing from Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki,
Finland and is a trained leadership coach.
Christina
has 12 years of managerial experience and has worked with leadership
development and executive education since 2001. She works with international
leadership and organizational development projects for many Finnish and Nordic
leading companies. Her passion is leadership development that aims to increase
performance, while improving both - customer and employee experiences.
Christina
has worked as the CEO at Hanken & SSE Executive Education
Ab, as Business Unit Director at TNS Gallup Oy and as researcher and
partnership manager at Hanken School of Economics. She is
currently a board member of Aktia Bank Ltd, Antti Ahlström Perilliset Oy, and Stiftelsen för Svenska Handelshögskolan.
Helen
is a partner and head of service design / user experience in Nortal.
She has created user experience for both public and private sector
products.
Besides that, she has been a part of many different startups and given her input to their appearance
and functioning. She is working globally currently with companies in US, Germany, Finland, Estonia and Emirates.
Helleka Koppel is the co-founder and Research Manager of the Center for Applied Anthropology of Estonia. She graduated from the University of Tartu with an M.A. degree in ethnology. Over the last four years, she has mostly been working on the applied field of anthropology coordinating and conducting research projects in both the public and private sector and building up the Center. Being interested in organizational culture, UX-design and public policy she has also given lectures and seminars about anthropological methods and applied anthropology in different Estonian universities, as well as for public sector officials. Together with her colleagues at the CAAE, she hopes to build a bridge between academia and the “real life”. Helleka believes in qualitative research methods and their power to find out what people really do and need in their everyday life.
Margus is a Swiss-Swedish-Canadian-Estonian and a founding partner of Brand Manual. His main responsibility is the international growth of the Brand Manual as well as the continuous development of the process and tools of service design that Brand Manual applies daily to client projects. He is a frequent speaker at national and international branding and service design conferences as well as a lecturer at schools and universities. He has published numerous articles on the subject of branding and service design both in the press and on the Brand Manual blog and is the author of the book “How to have your cake and eat it too – an introduction to service design”. He is also the catalyst behind the global Service Design Award, which was launched in October 2015 in New York. He is a member of the board of the Swedish-Estonian Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm and a design mentor at the European Innovation Academy.
Jaanika is the CEO of the Center for Applied Anthropology of Estonia. She has an M.A. degree in ethnology from the University of Tartu and in adult education from the University of Tallinn. Both disciplines focus on people - their experiences, wishes and needs. The skill to listen and to notice things that are important and trigger people to action is something that Jaanika has been able to develop in her various daily activities. In addition to taking part in projects from the Center for Applied Anthropology of Estonia, she has also organized the anthropological film festival World Film Festival. One of her main tasks whilst working in the Estonian National Museum has been to produce the participatory projects of the museum and to engage people in the museum's activities. Jaanika is convinced that whatever a project might be about, the key to its success is a human-centered design process.
Jane is design thinking coach, initiator and curator of the Design Thinking Conference and founder of Design Minds. "I started believing in design thinking while leading the Estonian Design Center for 6 years. By conducting a number of design thinking and service design trainings, masterclasses and business and public sector innovation programs, I saw the change in peoples’ mindset. Applying the design thinking approach, innovative and more human centered solutions emerged! I saw a new purpose and drive in the eyes of the people developing them”.
Janno works as an interaction designer in a user-focused software design agency Trinidad Wiseman. TWNs collective knowledge on how to use prototyping as a methodical tool to craft user-friendly solutions is met with praise by awards and users alike. Come and take a peek inside our cumulative knowledge on how to use prototyping to validate ideas and build user-friendly services.
Janno is a Design Lead and Partner at Velvet. He is saying about himself: "I am a Dad, a Hubby, a Son, a Brother, a Dyslexic and an Introvert! For more than 15 years I've been responsible for visual and functional harmony of various business development projects from web environments, information architecture, visual identities to service and business model design. I have been working with some of the most exciting clients on some of the most challenging cases. I have learned a lot, and taught a bit. I have received some awards and sat on a couple of juries. I believe, it is all about making sense, so... this is what I do and I do it well."
At his one-on-one coachings Kaido is convinced, that every personality can be developed and at his group-trainings he is certain that communication between different personalities can be learned. Kaido has been a fan of different personality types and DISC model for over 15 years by now. During this time he has done sales in USA, where he communicated with more than 20 000 people door-to-door; and he's been a consultant/trainer in Estonia, where he has done group-trainings for thousands of self-development enthusiasts and more than 900 one-on-one coachings to professionals with most different backgrounds and industries.
Kaja
is a partner and service designer in design and software development company
Proekspert. She has created user experience for both digital services and physical
products. As her passion is to bring out the hidden potential of the people, she
has initiated a creativity and design thinking course at Proekspert. The aim of
the course, where theory is intertwined with playful tasks, is to bring design
thinking to a strategic level in Proekspert.
Kristi is a trusted advisor with 20+ years of experience in the field of leadership and strategic communication. Her help is seeked during major changes, in developing strategies and when there is a need for clarity in chaos. Kristi's professional background has unique cornerstones in all three sectors of society. She has worked as a marketing and communication manager and advisor for many major Estonian and Scandinavian private and public sector companies. She has lead the Estonian Government's Communication Office and devoting her time and energy for the greater good, she has been one of the founders of various influential societal initiatives in Estonia. She is the initiator of the Arvamusfestival / Opinion Festival in 2013 - 2015 and the anti-bullying foundation Kiusamisvaba Kool seven years ago. Kristi is a valued communication coach and also member of the council of the independent think tank Praxis. Kristi loves hiking, practises yoga daily and labrador Emma is a very important member of her big family.
Kristine is a Graphic Designer at Nortal where
she is responsible for creating brand materials. Her everyday work involves
working side by side with the brand manager and the marketing &
communication team.
She is passionate about different papers and
printing techniques, also how the usage of them can show business value.
She
also enjoys participating in hackatons where she can share her knowledge and
pick up new ideas.
Leonore Riitsalu has been passionate about behavioral insights ever since learning about them on an OECD financial education conference in 2010. Leonore has participated and presented on several behavioral insights conferences (Behavioural Exchange 2015 & 2019, Behavioural Insights in Research and Policy Making, Research in Behavioural Finance Conference, Leveraging Behavioural Insights) and learned about conducting experiments for improving behavior in Harvard Behavioral Insights Group´s doctoral workshop. She has been lecturing in Financial Education and Behavioural Finance, and Behavioural Insights in Policymaking in the University of Tartu, and in Consumer Behaviour in the Estonian Business School. Her doctoral dissertation is entitled Books and Biases – the Explanation for Bounded Rationality in Managing Personal Finances. Leonore is a co-founder of MTÜ Rahatarkus, non-profit specializing in financial education.
Mari-Liis is a UI/UX designer. She is part of Nortal UX team where the
main focus is on improving user experience of digital products and
services and also creating new solutions from scratch. Her daily work
mostly includes dealing with information system interfaces:
analysing the situation, designing their visual appearance and testing
how it works to create a better user experience.
In past 25 years I have consulted over 200 organizations with branding, packaging and communication issues, founded few creative companies and acted as a spokesperson for Estonian design industry. Today I share my time between designing digital services, lecturing and being a co-founder of few startup companies. My goal is to create new products and services that are aesthetically pleasing, easy to use and solve real life problems.
Marko works as a business development manager at Veebimajutus.ee, helping to create and introduce new services and features to its 20,000 clients. He has over 20 years of expertise in the web and application development. Marko enjoys user testing, designing business models and strategy, prototyping and prEtotyping, service design mindset and experiments.
Piruza Harutjunjan is a partner and Chief Innovation Officer at Proekspert. Being a strategic partner for its clients, for Proekspert innovation means first of all developing services and business models that will help its partners to make the next big leap in their industries. I am going to share our fuckup story on beautifully designed smart cabin concept for one of the world’s largest shipping companies in Germany. It was supposed to be a major innovation and become the main unique selling point for our customer. The most interesting part here is that we did not fuck up because we ignored design thinking as you might think. Vice versa, the whole process was design-driven and we followed each step that is required by service design methods. Why and how it happened? As I love face to face interaction, you should attend the design thinking conference to get to know.
Päivi Hietanen is an architect (M.S.Arch) working as a City Design Manager for City of Helsinki. Päivi manages the Helsinki Lab that implements design thinking and supports city divisions in developing their services and customer experience. Päivi´s ambition is to use design to drive public sector transformation.
Rain Tunger is a dedicated entrepreneur,
musician and motivation and hospitality speaker. Rain manages the service teams
of Rataskaevu 16, Väike Rataskaevu, Pegasus and ÜLO restaurants in Tallinn,
which have quickly become big favorites for both local and international
guests. He has also been working on Radio 2's "Progression" for 14
years, studying guitar, composing songs and acting as an ecstatic dance DJ.
Rain's vision of a purposeful life sums up well with what he said: “The only
real gift I can make for myself and the others is to become aware of and
organize my inner world by recognizing and cultivating personal talent and
unlocking and realizing my true potential."
Richard is a Marketing Specialist who manages Veebimajutus.ee marketing channels and branding on a daily basis. Over the past 3 years, he has built a Veebimajutus blog that was visited by over 60,000 Estonians last year. A new challenge is to launch a web-building tool in the South African market using service design principles.
Steph is an independent strategist and researcher. She was most recently the Head of Research at digital agency Clearleft, where she helped companies and organisations build customer intelligence through combining design research with other disciplines. She previously led design research at the Telegraph and spearheaded European customer research with MailChimp. Currently, she is a senior researcher on contract at Google. In 20 years of working in the digital industry, Steph has worn many hats, including a product lead for a startup in digital publishing and a director of technology at a digital agency. She is also a regular speaker at conferences and guest lectures annually at the University of Greenwich. When not bound to a digital device, she makes things by hand, grows edible flowers and has a tendency to cook enough to feed a continent at a time. She now lives on her 4th continent on her 4th island in the UK.
After
years of working in advertising as an Art Director, Tanel decided to dig deeper
into branding and joined Nortal as a Brand Manager and Senior Graphics
Designer. Today he is a part of the Nortal UX team and is working seamlessly
with the Marketing Department.
Having the knowledge from working with different clients and their brands in
the past, he is well aware of the common do’s and dont’s in Brand Strategy. His
daily work consists mostly of data visualisation, print design and marketing
collateral. He’s also passionate about animation, architecture and interior
design.
