There is really exciting research taking place elsewhere. It was great connecting with key researchers while at Aalto University (in Espoo, close to Helsinki, Finland) – and initiate a new research using topic modelling (machine learning with Orange3 software) on a corpus off top academic journals on the term ‘ecosystem’. Work in progress at this point, involving my research collaborators at Carleton University and Aalto University. Topic modelling is relatively new in social sciences but is picking up. It can achieve very insightful results quickly, that humans cannot given the sheer and increasing size of ‘corpus’ (set of documents used in topic modelling).
Aalto university is a relatively new campus and the facilities are simply amazing: so ‘design’ and inviting to students. Subway station right on the campus, everything is walking distance. I stayed in an AirBnB in Helsinki and travel by subway. I thank Mika Westerlund for setting up the visit, Risto Rajala for welcoming me, showing me the beautiful campus,, and Maria Tikko for making sure everything was there and ready (and mailing me back my forgotten stuff…)
Two weeks in Finland (Vaasa IB conference and Aalto) followed by 2 weeks at the Southern Denmark University (SDU) , Odense, and Copenhagen. A big thank you to Soren Jensen for inviting me to lecture to his master students, spending several hours on a Sunday to do a walking tour of Odense, and organizing several visits and meetings. SDU is a charming campus. Facilities and processes to help entrepreneurship are also impressive.
Diane A. Isabelle 