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The Dean of the School of Engineering, Kari Tammi, has appointed Assistant Professor Tua Björklund as Director of Aalto Design Factory from 1 September 2024. The Design Factory is an experimental platform for education and research in product development, established in 2008. Björklund has played a key role in its development and operation since its inception.   

Björklund is internationally renowned for promoting the role and impact of design. Her expertise combines engineering, creativity, organisational psychology and innovation. In addition to Design Factory, Björklund is also the Deputy Director of Materials to Products research group in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. 

"It's great to continue with Design Factory. There is no field where development skills are not useful. We need good practices and research knowledge for impactful co-creation and education," says Björklund.  

Björklund succeeds Professor Kalevi Ekman, who has led the Design Factory since it was founded.  

"I am very pleased with Tua's appointment - it will provide us with the right amount of continuity and renewal to ensure the continued success of Design Factory," says Dean Kari Tammi.   

Ideation across borders  

Design Factory brings together Aalto's different disciplines, students, researchers and companies. The experimenting platform has also attracted interest from around the world: the international network already includes 39 Design Factories in 25 countries.  

"The best ideas are developed together, but collaboration between different parties rarely goes completely smoothly. Our aim at Design Factory has always been to bring people together across disciplines and organisational boundaries – now also internationally – and to create tools and education for effective co-creation", Björklund says.   

The Design Factory runs a number of courses on product development and various development practices, open to all Aalto students. Staff also visits different courses, groups and companies to teach prototyping, ideation and design thinking, among other things.    

"Aalto has a great community to build a new interdisciplinary development culture – welcome to the Design Factory to ideate what we could experiment with together," Björklund adds.   

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