CIE DIRECTOR

Heikki Huomo

CIE Director, Heikki Huomo, has his major professional background in communications industry including several management positions in Nokia. He has also worked for VTT Technical Research Center of Finland and Helsinki University of Technology. The most recent positions Heikki has had were in the semiconductor industry at Innovision Research and Technology Ltd.(UK), and NXP Semiconductors in Austria.  

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What is CIE's mission?

"CIE drives co-creation of next generation internet technologies, appliances and services. We aim to capture and create internet-driven growth opportunities and value by combining cutting-edge research innovations with agile new business creation processes. Despite CIE’s highly global nature, the local cooperation and networks form a basis for our operations. We strive for growth, business possibilities and employment in the Oulu area. Internet research is one of the focus areas of the Oulu Innovation Alliance agreement, and CIE the center of excellence to drive that."

What are CIE’s focus areas?

"We aim to work across boundaries, i.e. our projects are multi-disciplinary. Our main focus is in technology but closely linked with application development, usability and social sciences. In other words, we work at the edges of the Internet. Secondly, we drive for the Living Lab approach to obtain user-driven innovations by involving individuals outside the traditional product and service creation professions. This empowers ordinary people to experiment and contribute for the Future Internet. Finally, we strongly focus our energy on the development of new business opportunities based on the Internet."

What is CIE's organization like?

"CIE's organization is built around projects. The research personnel from CIE's partner organizations work at CIE for the duration of joint projects. They are supported by a limited number of management personnel such as research and funding directors."

 Who do you cooperate with?

"We work closely with our parent organizations that have committed to CIE's initial funding: the University of Oulu, Nokia, the city of Oulu, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Technopolis and the Oulu University of Applied Sciences. Other important interest groups include project partners, innovators and business developers. Furthermore, we promote Oulu as a living lab environment which we develop towards the Smart City vision. We are constantly looking for new partners in all mentioned categories. Our role is to combine the best ideas, people and resources from different organizations, fields of businesses and science for new business and value creation in the Internet context."

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CIE TASKS

PURPOSE

To produce new information and innovations concerning the internet technologies, human-media-internet interaction, internet based services based, and internet business models.

RESEARCH EXECUTION

To identify relevant research challenges and engage them with high-quality staff and international research cooperation that include internet research centers, communities and industry.

NETWORKING

To engage in high-quality international research of internet related issues and to network with national and international research centers and industry.

RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURES

To develop research infrastructures with universities, research institutes and industry to create an internationally visible, multidisciplinary environment of excellence in internet technologies and services.

DISSEMINATION

To promote the exploitation of research results and cross-fertilization of ideas as well as innovations between research themes, projects, partners and stakeholders.

BUSINESS INCUBATION

To foster the development of new business incubation and business development with target to create new growth.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

To provide researcher training, scientific degrees and highest education in the field.