GÉANT CEO Lise Fuhr and Chair of the Board Gilles Massen today welcomed over 950 attendees to Helsinki, for a packed programme of keynotes, sessions, side meetings, BoFs, plenaries, social programmes, and the return of the highly successful Community Hub.
Next was a special video address from the European Commissioner for Digital and Frontier Technologies, and Executive Vice-President for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy — Henna Virkkunen who reaffirmed the importance of the GÉANT community to Europe’s priorities.
Lise and Gilles then reminded us all of the responsibility we have, ensuring Europe’s researchers, students, educators, and innovators can continue to count on us for seamless connectivity, trusted access to data, and the ability to collaborate across borders. And how, in a world that is changing, we all rely on each other, on deeper collaboration, and on our collective Digital Sisu – supported by a clear direction for the future that is delivered today by the new GÉANT Association strategy for 2026-2030.
Erik Huizer, ex-GÉANT CEO and now representing the Vietsch Foundation, then joined the stage to award the Vietsch Medal of Honour to Marko Bonac of Arnes, and was then joined by Vietsch Foundation trustee Pekka Kahkipuro, to award a special instance of the Medal for the first time to an entire organisation – URAN, the Ukrainian NREN.
Finally, it was time to welcome Keynote Speaker Maria Ritola who spoke about ‘Successful teams and good work life in the digital age’. You can read about Maria in the TNC26 edition of the CONNECT magazine, in an excellent interview article that fully explores this area.
Here’s to a great week of digital sisu!
