City of Helsinki launches first annual #HelsinkiEducationWeek

From November 5–9, 2018, over 100 events will take place across the city of Helsinki, celebrating the work taking place in daycare centers, schools, and educational establishments.

The programs are free and open to the public, and coincide with the HundrED Innovation Summit, an invitation-only event that brings together the world’s most inspiring innovators in education.

Between Helsinki Education Week and the HundrED Innovation Summit, dubbed as a “Davos of education,” the city of Helsinki will be teeming with local and international education stakeholders passionate about improving excellence and equity in education.

“We are thrilled by the high number of quality event submissions for the first annual Helsinki Education Week,” said Liisa Pohjolainen, Executive Director of Education Division of the Helsinki School District.

“This event celebrates excellence and equity which are at the heart of the Finnish approach to education and we’re excited to host some of the most passionate educators, students, and stakeholders here in Helsinki.”

Helsinki Education Week provides a program for learners of all ages and for everyone who is interested in learning and developing education.

The five-day program includes, studying in the school tram, or learning environment experiences both in the forest and in the virtual world. There will also be skateboarding with Skateistan, Escape Games, Pop-Up College in the shopping center, digital and portfolio pedagogy, workshops, documentary premieres, open doors and panel discussions.

Helsinki Education Week will feature programs from the world’s teaching experts, Finnish education leaders, and teachers, students, and parents from Helsinki.

The event is structured around four program tracks:

• Hands-on workshops organized by local and international teachers and students,
• Dialogue sessions consisting of discussions about teacher and student needs,
• Networking events with a focus on co-learning and co-creation; and
• Exploring various educational innovations and learning environments.

“We’re extremely proud to partner with the City of Helsinki and the Helsinki School District to host this event,” said Saku Tuominen, CEO of HundrED.

“Our mission is to break down the barriers that prevent education innovations from spreading cross borders. There’s no better place than Helsinki, a playground for education innovation, to share and spread some of the world’s most inspiring K12 innovations during Helsinki Education Week, and in years to come.”

Helsinki is the Capital of Finland and the centre of the Helsinki Region, a functional urban region of about 1.4 million inhabitants. In 2018 Helsinki is one of the fastest growing cities in Europe.

The Education division is in charge of early childhood education, preschool education, basic education, upper secondary education and liberal adult education in both Finnish and Swedish and vocational education in Finnish.  

The division holds more than 100 000 children and students annually, 13,000 professionals and services in more than 700 locations. Helsinki is one of the world’s leading education services providers in phenomenon-based learning.

About HundrED: A Finnish based not-for-profit organization that seeks and shares inspiring innovations in K12 education. HundrED’s goal is to help improve education through encouraging pedagogically sound, ambitious innovations to spread across the world. Since 2016, HundrED has been conducting rigorous research to find and select 100 inspiring innovations of that year, annually. All of the insights and selected innovations are documented, packaged and shared with educators around the world.