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Teuvo Kohonen in memoriam

Academician of Science, Professor Teuvo Kohonen (1934–2021) has passed away. Kohonen was a pioneer of research and education in information technology. His work on neural networks received global acknowledgement.
Teuvo Kohonen. Kuva: Lasse Lecklin

Professor and Academician of Science Teuvo Kohonen passed away at the age of 87 on December 13th, 2021.

Kohonen led a prominent academic career at the University of Technology, which preceded Aalto University. He retired in the late 1990s as an Academy Professor and the director of the neural networks research unit at the Helsinki University of Technology.

Kohonen is one of the world's best-known neural network researchers. He is best known for his self-organizing maps (SOMs), which brought Finnish artificial intelligence research onto the world stage in the early 1980s.

Kohonen graduated from the Helsinki University of Technology with a master's degree in engineering in 1957 and received his doctorate in 1962. 

Teuvo Kohonen received the honorary title of Academician of Science from the President of the Republic of Finland in 2000.

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