The Alumni of the Year award is given to a Jamk University of Applied Sciences graduate who has acted in a positive and exemplary way for the benefit of Jamk's, the region's working life and their own organisation. In addition, the Alumni of the Year has promoted interaction between Jamk's, society and alumni.
Alumnus of the Year is an active working life partner
Anssi Ylönen's nomination as Alumnus of the Year was based especially on his active and long-term role as a partner. Ylönen has made a significant contribution to promoting cooperation between Jamk and especially between the IT Institute and working life.
Ylönen regularly participates in recruitment events organised by Jamk, introducing his employer and offering thesis and internship positions to students. Over the years, Ylönen has worked as a representative of working life in various working life-oriented learning environments in the ICT fields. Especially class visits have been pleasing to Ylönen. In addition, he has been a member of the Advisory Board of the IT Institute for several years.
'Anssi is always involved when it comes to the interface between industry and students. He is also an active member of the Advisory Board for Education and thus highlights the requirements of working life for higher education, which is very important to us. It has been a pleasure to see his dedication and work with him," says Tero Kokkonen, Director of the IT Institute.
A rewarding career in a changing industry
Anssi Ylönen graduated from Jamk as a software engineer in 2000. The choice of field was quite obvious to Ylönen, as he liked doing things related to computers. Through practical training as part of his studies, Ylönen ended up working at Digia, where he still works as a service manager in the customer interface and as a supervisor.
The IT industry has been undergoing a transformation throughout Ylönen's working life. 'Engineering graduates are people who think analytically and understand and are able to utilise both existing and future technology. About ten years ago, cloud services came along, which significantly changed the previous way of doing and operating software services," Ylönen describes and continues to reflect on the future of the industry:
"For a couple of years, people have wondered about the advent of artificial intelligence and pondered how it will change our industry. At this stage, it is difficult to predict the final result, but we are probably talking about the biggest change in the industry. The tasks of an engineer will not disappear, but they will look different in the future than, say, five years ago."
In his speech, Director of the School of Technology Petri Lakka, who presented the Alumnus of the Year diploma to Ylönen, described the alumni as ambassadors of Jamk's and thanked Ylönen for his excellent cooperation with Jamk for several decades.
Warm congratulations to Anssi Ylönen for the Alumnus of the Year award and thanks for the versatile and long-term cooperation with Jamk!
