Year in Review 2017

Fourth year in review. This year I did more work with schools and was excited to see school districts start to embrace my work. Ran roughly 400 kilometres around the world and read 60 books. Flew over 120 flights and did over 60 talks. Published the third book in Ruby series.

2017 was a weird year. On the other hand I felt like I found professionally the guidelines I had been looking for: maximising freedom, maximising curiosity. Early on in the year I stumbled upon Robert Irwin who “decided to step in to his own curiosity” and knew I had found what I had been looking for. On the other hand I experienced first hand how easy it is to tip out of balance and ignore the things closest & dearest to you, resulting in a big mess.

Here are 2016, 2015 and 2014. And here is 2017:

January

• Changed the year in Långvik with minimal hassle, maximum friends. Moved offices to Maria, again in snow & cold. Enjoyed the quiet days after Christmas and found kindred spirits. Met Andre Agassi at NBF (whose book I loved a few years back), but was most impressed with his charismatic manager who told me war stories about building schools.
• Saw Arrival and Jackie. Loved this Tumblr story on Harry Potter and the CS classics list. Celebrated Nils’ and Saku’s birthdays. Ate more veggies and bought a Vitamix!
• Went to Hawaii with Ville and enjoyed St. Regis & hiking. Kauai was green and lush and beautiful. Rode around the island to get one of my magic books of the year: Seeing is Forgetting (more on that later).
• Washed my passport in the washing machine. It was a bad year for passports: I lost all together three.

Read:

• The Girls.
• Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. (Ended up studying a lot more physics this year than I originally anticipated!)
• Juniper. From this Radiolab episode. If I were to start a tech company it would be in this space.
• Where Wizards Stay Up Late.
• Tale of Shikanako #1. I forgot to read the next parts, need to put it in my reading queue.
• Whiplash.
• Mothers.
• The Gene.

February

• Spent most of the month in US: New York, DC and Boston. Visited DC public schools, took mom to see Bowery Poetry Club in NY. Had really wonderful, snowy, concentrated days in Boston and got to hang out with Jie & rest of LLK team + dinners with friends.
• Atlantic wrote about Ruby & the philosophy behind it!
• Did my first STEM Institute with Roxanne and the CS4All team of New York Department of Education. Was exhausted, happy, loved the thorough feedback and can’t wait to run the course again.
• Left my laptop in an Uber in Boston and ran around like crazy trying to get it to New York in time. Bought a new iPad and started experimenting with tools like Astropad, Apple Pencil and PS Sketch that would later in the year replace my old system of drawing.
• Wined and dined with Henrietta on a very random evening.

Read:

• Beloved. Loved this. More Toni Morrison for 2018.
• Association of Small Bombs.
• Seeing is Forgetting the Name of The Thing One Sees. On of the three most important books of the year. Oh Robert Irwin. His entire doctorate acceptance speech:”All I want say is that the wonder is still there.” Walks away.
• The End of Absence.
• The Underground Railroad.

March

• Went to Melbourne for a few days to speak at NGV Victoria for a Hockney exhibition (+ Australian TV!). Started my David Hockney obsession that would last the entire year.
• Settled into New York life and the TED residency. Started new routines with hip hop yoga! Did an Arduino workshop at School for Poetic Computation and enjoyed feeling like a beginner.
• Worked a lot on the Internet book, reading a ton of the original research papers of WWW and Internet. Fell in love with Fermat’s library. Spent a lot of time thinking how to structure the book between software, hardware and culture of Internet.
• Visited Switzerland shortly and was chosen as one of the 50 most inspiring women in tech in Europe.
• Saw two plays: Tove Jansson in Helsinki with Jemina and an immersive piece Strangest in New York with Paul. Had a really fun, magic, sparkly afternoon with Hugo in Whitney Biennal.

Read

• Small Pieces Loosely Joined.
• The Vegetarian.
• Homo Deus.
• Commonwealth

April

• Tried to balance living in two continents. Wrote a lot, but also saw a lot of friends. Went to see Puerto Rican / New York Poetry Slam with Roxanne and loved it. Brunched with Jason & Sara, went flywheeling with Zach, had dinner at Farhad’s insane apartment and cooked for Otto.
• Saw Ghost in Shell and a live version of Israel Story (and got many ideas for my own performances). Backed Climate Change Coloring Book, which was one of my favorite Kickstarter projects of the year.
• Turned 31 in New York. Got to go to Sesame Workshop!!
• Got a new, beautiful goddaughter.
• A quick trip to Barcelona to see Hola Ruby out in Spanish & Catalanian. Had a magical midnight dinner with a locals and visited one of the most eclectic schools. Continued working on Internet (and a concept stage boardgame).
• Tried to read David Foster Wallace, but gave up. This year maybe.. Still, always, Björk.

Read

• The Handmaid’s tale
• A Tale of Love and Darkness. Enjoyed this one a lot.
• In the Woods

May

• The spring was starting to catch up and felt mostly jetlagged for the entire month. On the upside: lots of wonderful encounters with new and old friends. Saw Mikito for the first time in a long time and talked art & technology (TBC!!). Met Fawn! And Karen! Had breakfast with Yon & left with the biggest grin. Celebrated Eve’s engagement. Spent the memorial day weekend in Austin, with Terence & Melanie.
• Celebrated Vappu in Central Park and had one of those funny, warm, random New York dinners where there just happens to be some of the most celebrated musicians, cooks & tech people of Nordics all under same roof.
• Saw the Commes des Garcons show in Met and felt Rei Kawakubo’s personality. Organised Computing & Stories summit in SFPC and felt the future of computing. Saw Georgia O’Keeffe (+Marimekko, Finnish pride!) exhibition with Tiina (and later read this great article).
• Did another PD on Internet with the NYC teachers (and tested ideas for the book, win-win!) and also in Göteborg for Swedish teachers.
• Fell in love with China. 你好 Ruby! Hello Ruby won the prestigious DIA Award by China Academy of Art out of 2700 applicants. My visit in Hangzhou was short, but can’t wait to go back and learn more about the country and it’s technology & education culture. Here are a few stories: 1, 2, 3

Read

• Startup.
• The Wangs vs. the World
• See you in the cosmos.
• Americanah. LOVED this.

June

• Ended TED Residency with a talk. Really wish I would have prioritised the residency more, but luckily the community doesn’t come with an expiration date.
• Took my parents to Japan and was really excited to show them all the experiences I loved. Visited Kyoto & Osaka for the first time.
• Flew to Birmingham CAS conference. Miles and the UK computing organisations have inspired me a lot and I was glad to be able to give back. Loved being back in London for a few days and spending time in Kew Gardens with Minna and her family + seeing House of Minalima with Emma. Celebrated Tuula’s 60th.
• Worked too much. Had a familiar midsummer stretch with Ruby 3, me & mom going through proofs at 4 AM in the morning. Decided to move the next deadline to May to avoid the summer panic.
• For most of the year my phone only had data service. Realised how much I hated being interrupted with calls. Ville sold his car, so we were for the first time in 5+ years a car free household. Felt like the future.

Read

• On China.
• Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees. Finally finished. Best book I read all year.
• American War.

July

• Had my traditional summer vacation month and lived it vigourously by going to the dentist, eye doctor, doctor.. Oh well, ran and swam also and enjoyed the cold Nordic summer by biking in the soaking rain. Got Nintendo Switch and played hours and hours of Zelda. Still haven’t finished exploring.
• Visited Berlin and danced my worries away with girlfriends. One of the most important weekends of the years with big consequences.
• Celebrated the wedding of Pete & Liisa, met Juha 6/5, watered plants with little Isla, saw Valerian and had lunch with Miki with omnious predictions (that turned out ok).
• Did a biking trip to Kristo’s & Anna’s island with Ville and loved the archipelago and sense of summer childhoods. Visited the new Moominmuseum in Tampere and can warmly recommend it. Visited Meidän Festivaali, summer tradition.
• Found A16Z AI Playbook and got inspired for the next book — it’s really amazing how much good educational material is out there. Some of my favorite newsletters on the topic for the entire year were: ImportAI, Exponential View and Creative.AI

Read

• Artificial Intelligence: What everyone needs to know.
• The Thirst. My summer tradition with the Nesbo’s..
• In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia. Reggio was a lot on my mind through the year.
• Sweetbitter
• New York 2140
• The Thing About Jellyfish.

August

• Had a lot of family problems and overall a very sad month. But was also much more gentle towards myself and had a very strong idea of persisting. Stark contrast to the PR stuff happening around same time. Talked to everyone and everywhere, thank you for listening. Cried a lot.
• Third Ruby book came out in Finnish. The tetralogy is one step to being finished. I wanted to talk about the Internet, but everyone else still wants to talk about coding. Oh well. This was a nice, long talk about the book, although in Finnish.
• Spent a lot of energy making home feel like home. Hosted dinners, spent a fun evening in Lonna, celebrated Flow weekend, had dinner in the Marimekko factory floor, went to the wedding of Johanna and Kalle.
• Did two really important things for myself: started seeing a therapist and joined an all-girls running club. Monday evenings of track, hills and forests were the highlight of the week for the entire fall. Thanks Helsinki Core Trainers & Jarno. Went also orienteering for the first time in 20 years and found it very soothing.
• Favorite things of the month: Melissa Kaseman’s art project, Preschool Pocket Treasures and Young Explorers.

Read

• Rikinkeltainen taivas
• The Idiot
• The Sellout
• Walkaway

September

• Went to Copenhagen for Techfestival and enjoyed the small, weird, ambiguous, quality driven discussions. Felt fresh for a technology conference.
• Worked on the English version of Internet book and started planning an illustration exhibition around Ruby with mom. Did some play testing at the English School and loved the children.
• Nelli had a masquerade party, dressed up as Alice in Wonderland and made a special dress (here’s to hoping new occasions to wear it)! Celebrated Marjaana’s birthday in Lonna, ended up at an old friends apartment eating pizza at 7 AM.
• Organised a surprise birthday party for my sister together with her friends and baby shower to my cousin’s wife. Hung out with goddaughter on a crips autumn day. Enjoyed doing small things for others.
• Judged a hackathon at Marimekko and ended up doing my first machine learning project inspired by it! Found Liu Cixin’s books and my mind exploded.
• Went to Amsterdam and did a teacher workshop. Walked alone around a lot. Month ended up in better news. Building on that.
• Kept running. Kept reading this essay by Robert Macfarlane. Influenced my work a lot.

Read:

• The Beautiful bureaucrat
• The God of Small Things
• When Marnie was there. Still haven’t seen the movie!
• Standard Deviation
• Sophie’s Choice
• Sourdough. Loved this. Bought five immediately to giveaway.
• Three Body problem. One of the other important books/series of the year.
• A Mind at Play
• River Town

October

• Weird month. Mostly relieved, but also way too much travel. I feel dizzy only going through what happened.. Was really happy to get a good review of the second Ruby book in US. The timelines of publishing really kill me: it’ll be another 20+ months before the book I’m working on right now hits the market.
• Ran the Sipoonkorpi Trail and admired the baby kitten of a friend. Had a 15 year old intern who was bold enough to apply! Met with a lot of school people in Helsinki with the Hundred Summit (the video is pretty cool, from the summer trip in Japan!). Was back in Berlin for a few days, fell in love with my German publisher and their worldview. Went also to Latvia to do a workshop with teachers.
• Had pizza and watched Lady Gaga documentary with friends. Enjoyed this drawing from Aura.
• Did an insane around the world few weeks: started with David’s birthday party in Copenhagen, followed by a very hungover flight to South Korea. Ran the best run of the year at Namsan Trail in Seoul, hung out with friends old and new. Saw Hillary Clinton live! Bucket list. Flew to Wisconsin and met with very cool librarians (and woke up to the news I had won an award on future of culture in Finland!). Spent a day in New York: saw friends, did a book event at my favourite bookstore, ran in Central Park.. and met my biggest kidlit idol, Oliver Jeffers, accidentally on the street!
• Visited four Finnish cities and three Swedish ones in a week. Did a project for Swedish teachers and tried reading Ruby aloud på svenska. Sounded like moomintrollet, but whatever. Flew to Japan.

Read:

• Hold me tight.
• Close to the Machine. This was like Patti Smith with computers.
• Dark Forest.
• Machine Learning: the new AI
• Room of One’s Own. Thousand times yes.
• Little Fires Everywhere.

November

• Went to Japan to accept the Rakuten Technology & Innovation award. Loved the other prize winners — among them an 80 year old app developer lady. Soaked for a rainy Sunday in onsen with Tokyo friends and visited the new Yayoi Kusama museum.
• Went to Lapland with Ville. Enjoyed season’s first skiing and started knitting again. Saw Tuntematon Sotilas movie. Dear friends got married and we got to be the witnesses. Met a new baby relative.
• Very briefly visited Malmö and Oredev — wish I could have stayed longer. Flew to Miami and played Super Mario Odyssey almost entire flight. Got to visit an amazing school in Coconut Grove.
• Finished Liu Cixin’s the Remembrance of Earth trilogy and a la Emily Dickinson: “I felt a cleaving in my mind / As if my brain had split;
  I tried to match it, seam by seam, / But could not make them fit.”
• Went to Greece and had the warmest & most enthusiastic crowd. Hope next year will bring more collaborations.
• Thought a lot about this essay from Stephen Wolfram and this one from Cory Doctorow. Installed Moment, which was one of the healthiest choices of the year.

Read

• Forest Dark.
• Stoner. This was the surprise Ferrante of the year: kept popping up everywhere..
• Draft №4: On the Writing Process. Loved this.
• Death’s End.
• The Obelisk Gate.
• The Fifth Season.
• At the Existentialist Cafe. Took me almost a year to finish, but I can sense the reverberations..

December

• I MET AL GORE. Everyone who knows me (or the 1.6 million people who watched the TED talk..) knows this was a huge deal, like a circle closing after 17 years. (The biggest daily of Finland also wrote a piece about the meeting on their economy pages. Teenage girls & their enthusiasm change the world ❤). (Also, had lunch with Prince William, which on any other day would have been a huge deal, but all my excitement had already been used on Gore..). Slush was everything it promised: late from everything, random encounters, techno parties in the tunnels of Helsinki that went on until morning.
• Went to Australia, spent half of the trip with a flu and lost my bank card, passport, and a few other gadgets. Decided it was time for a vacation. Loved seeing Australia beyond Melbourne and promised to come back for more than a few days..
• Got a bit emotional about Finland turning 100 after being pretty nonchalant for the entire centennial party year.
• Met with more childhood idols and got feedback on my projects. Met with a mentor and planned a trip to Dubai. Took a metro to Aalto University and heard about their AI research and quantum computing. Got really excited about visiting India. A teacher in NYC dressed up as Ruby for Computer Science week.
• Wrote about work and worked on writing.
• Finished the Hockney book and was happy as a child with the Hockney-Falco-thesis. Perception (be it human, AI or art) seemed to be the theme of the year. Read Sherry Turkle’s work and found direction(s).
• Made gingerbread cookies with goddaughters family, took another goddaughter to movies to see Moomin. Celebrated Maija’s doctoral dissertation (and surprise wedding!). Went to Christmas concert with Nelli & Juha, had many Christmas celebrations with friends. Saw Star Wars (if I had to choose, liked the new Blade Runner better) and Mozart’s Magic Flute (loved the Komische Oper Berlin visuals). Watched the Crown.
• Had girls over for wrath making and planning the new year. Spent Christmas together with Ville, just the two of us. Loved our tree, the new traditions and the quiet.

Read

• Dinner at the Center of the Earth.
• Manhattan Beach.
• Minun Amerikkani. Felt this strongly.
• True to Life: Twenty-Five years of Conversations with David Hockney. One of the big books of the year.
• The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit.