Mirkka Niiranen

Last week at our internal meetup at Solita I gave a talk “Please don’t do that” about the most frequent accessibility issues and how to avoid them. (Wanna hear it too? Join me in Tampere on 6th of June at TampereJS! https://lnkd.in/dFWbE-Ki) The second most frequent accessibility issue is missing alternative text on images; one of the participants asked if it would be possible to bake-in an alternative text into the image’s metadata. Solving the lack of alts for sure, but would that be the way to go? The intent is indeed good and the solution is technically possible, but there’s quite a few problems with it. Eric Bailey wrote a great piece on this, analyzing so many aspects: from images being contextual, through localization, performance, tone, all the way to manipulation and malware. Give it a read for some pleasant horizon-broadening: https://lnkd.in/d2e2evcE

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✨ Woo newsflash! ✨ I've decided to go on a new adventure and quit my job as Head of UX Research at Nordhealth. It's been a great 2 (and a bit) years in which I got to build the research ops from the ground up, learn a lot about product and company processes and integrated research into the product development cycle to make real impact on the product. While I'm not quite ready to tell you yet what I'll be doing next, I'm very excited for the next step in my career in UX. I am immensely grateful for my colleagues and for the flexibility that allowed me to balance major life events—like becoming a mom 👶 —with a fulfilling career, all while working remotely yet staying closely connected with our team. Big thanks to Hesam Khodabakhshi, Fabio Carneiro, and Teppo Haste—working with you was an absolute blast, our shared vision for how research and design cooperate within product has been amazing to build in the last 2 years. Thank you Dana Iliuciuc & Marie Katharina Hermann for being on my team, trusting in me to lead the research team and for being amazing and fun to work with. Without you, we wouldn't be where the research team is today. And a special shoutout to our amazing brand designer, Mira Hodasova, whose insta reels and knitting skills made remote working the best 🧶 While looking forward to this next phase in life, I've come to really appreciate the intricasies of managing business and customer needs, product management, the rise of AI and how to balance it all while working remotely. My new role will shift to hybrid, a big change for me, one that I am excited about to see how hybrid influences the work and collaboration and how my autistic brain will manage the balance between busy office life and quiet home office. Thank you to everyone who’s been a part of this amazing journey. Not just my colleagues but also the many people ive met here on LinkedIn in the last 2 years. Ive learned a lot from you all and am excited to not just share more but also continue to learn from everyone here. Here’s to new beginnings and the exciting challenges that lie ahead! 🚀 But first, a little holiday to recharge before diving into the new role. 🌳🥾 #newbeginnings #uxr #ux #userexperience #uxresearch #leadership #careerjourney #professionaldevelopment #thankyou

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At Google’s yearly developer event, the company showed off Veo, a brand-new tool that’s really good at turning written words into videos. Veo makes videos that look great, are full HD, and can last for more than a minute. It can create videos in lots of different styles as well. Veo lets people tell the camera exactly what to do, such as close-ups, pan, or show how things change over time. Right now, the availability of VEO is only available to a selected few people through VideoFX. Here is an interesting video and their its that give us a preview of what VEO can do. #Google #VEO #TextToVideo #AI #Innovation

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We’re dreamers at Mindera, so we like to test the boundaries of what’s possible as long as it helps us to achieve our purpose. We think the coolest tech is created by people who love what they do. Together, we wanted to create an environment where the team is more important than the individual, decisions are made by those impacted most, people have the autonomy to try out new things, and lessons are learned from failures and seen as part of our growth. For us, it works. We can work faster and be more agile as we’re not dependent on levels but groups of people making it happen. Read the full article by Pedro Teixeira at our blog: https://lnkd.in/dPCfHmMi #MinderaMorocco #selforganization #workculture #softwareengineering

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“Yo!” – This is how I usually say “Hi!” to people around me, at least to the one's that I have a tiny bit closer relationship than a formal one. However, that had to be “adjusted” for the task I've put myself to. Last time I posted about my new position at Captomatic. Which might sound like “big news”, but in this post, I want to talk about something different. While having a glance at the post itself, to see how it was doing, I've noticed the something in the attached .gif image. There was a white plastic piece attached to my shirt. While everything was calculated and accounted for, noticing it for the N-th time inspired me to write this post, which is going to be about me stepping in front of a camera for the first time. There are 2 parts to this short story. Got a little too carried away while writing and the full story is too long to post at once, so it is a good thing it's split. Will start with the personal one, something tells me that this is what people here might be more interested in :) As mentioned before, this was first time for me stepping in front of a camera. It's not like I have never been filmed before. Let me specify – this was the first time for me stepping in front of a camera to deliberately deliver information to the audience. From the countless meetings and calls with clients, potential clients and “leads”, I've got an idea that it is much more efficient to show how one of our systems work in a video, rather than spending time at each meeting or drawing 1001 sales materials and diagrams, that each individual will interpret in a different way. This just seemed like a more appropriate way to deliver the information. I came up with a plan to film a video that I can easily send my colleagues at sales and my potential clients, where I showcase the new system. The concept is simple – me standing next to a screen and showing the viewer how simple it is to use our new app. On paper – simple, in practice – a little bit less that simple. Can't say that the filming process and video itself was perfect, nor can I say it was bad. All of it turned out the way I expected it to. I am more than satisfied of how the equipment worked, maybe except the color-grading between the iPhone main camera and the “3x zoom” one. The video editing process took a lot more time than expected, learned a lot during the process. The most challenging part was the “act”. I had prepared a script for the video. To be fair, mostly (underline this), the video follows the script, but boy was it hard to keep up. Note to self – read the script a couple of more times beforehand, while You can have takes during filming – the more You take – the more You will regret it during editing. I even thought of sending my colleagues a blooper, where I say "..with all of that.." 18(!) times. Great experience, lots of small know-hows learned. The next part for sure will be better. The video itself is available here: https://lnkd.in/d2kjT_cX

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Here come some awesome tips on how to keep up your development over summer! 🙌 🌞 📢 I personally use DuoLingo for my language skills but will definitely check out Memrise on Margarita Iashchina's recommendation! 💡 📝 ✔ What do you use? Any tips to add to the list?

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🚀 TypeScript is on the Rise 🚀 Over the past few years TypeScript has seen a significant increase in adoption among companies in Denmark and Sweden. According to recent surveys, over 70% of large tech firms in the Nordics have integrated TypeScript into their tech stacks, driven by its ability to enhance code quality and maintainability. How are you developing your Typescript skills and how is your team leveraging TypeScript? 🧠

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Article in UX-Norge: Don't be dazzled by the flashing AI-sun - take action and gain control! As AI continues to affect all sectors at breakneck speed, creating both excitement and concern, it's important not to blindly jump on the AI ​​bandwagon. I would advice to take the time to evaluate the requirements for you technological requirements to ensure it meets your unique needs. At its core, artificial intelligence represents a continuation of technological progress, standing on the shoulders of innovations such as computers, the internet and smartphones that have changed all of our lives in recent times. Historically, humanity has always adjusted our life patterns and ways of working, and the innovations that AI brings are no exception. From the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, which radically transformed society, to the advent of the Internet in the 1990s which changed communication, technological advances have always had profound effects on how we work and live. AI offers great opportunities to streamline work processes and innovate across industries, which will undoubtedly shape the business landscape of the future. But with this rapidly moving technology comes a certain risk of overwhelm. Many companies feel the pressure of having to adopt AI in order not to fall behind and often get a bit desperate to “add AI to it”. Ministers and technology providers promise great opportunities with solutions for challenges you may not even know you had. In this rush, it can be easy to lose your footing and jump into the undetermined void. But it's important to take a step back and consider how AI can be the tool that actually has value for your business, and not just a technological distraction. It is said that AI should be used as an aid to augment human capabilities, not replace them (although many believe we have already passed this point in many regards). But I would strongly advise to take a breath and reflect on how AI can serve your specific goals and ambitions to reach your customers in the best way. It's not about rejecting the technology, but managing its integration in a way that suits your business needs or personal career aspirations; understanding and setting clear goals. Companies need to think through their objectives and values ​​and understand their customers' needs before, for example, they start building a chatbot so that they know that it will actually solve a realistic need. So, take action and let the AI ​​help you make progress, but keep the steering wheel firmly in your hands. That way you ensure that the AI ​​works for you, and not against you.

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Begin - Agent-Based Modeling   Hello, World; You ever wanted to play puppet master to a bunch of digital minions, ey? Enter Agent-Based Modeling (ABM), where you're the mad scientist behind a virtual universe of agents - go all in, friend! My team – The Petri Dish Posse – did exactly that when we decided to work on a Meningitis model.   The Buzz - Analogy: An Agent-Based Model is like an ant farm! An "agent" in this ant simulation would follow its own rules, bumping into others like cars. The result is a chaos and order that depicts a real-life phenomenon for the ants! For more context, in videogames, it's like playing GTA but with digital ants instead of cars. I want to model all this, but for a disease. Probably not the best example but ants collision should be more random than the GTA car collision, since we’re looking at a trouble/problem where there is a sense of randomness to it. WHAT Agent-Based Modeling IS: Think of Agent-Based Modeling as a system of computational models that simulate behavior of individual agents in order to study emergent phenomena - in terms of disease infection in a population. Agents may represent humans, institutions, microorganisms, and disease vectors and so forth. The agents’ actions are based on autonomous decision-making and other behavioral traits, implemented through formal rules and this is the essence of modelling and computer simulation. WHAT I have LEARNED/ACHIEVED, and EXPECTATION: I am coming from a place of not having fully understood it, but that is the fun I am getting into: to be allowed to describe it in as many inaccurate English words as possible, and still have a serious conversation about it:) I expect to focus on working on a full-on solution/system that addresses disease infection, in this case, of Meningitis. And gauge how that system can be used show how infection works and see how intervention strategies (eg vaccination, treatment) can be used in the mix to counter infection. This would be used to make data-driven decisions or influence healthcare or lifestyle choices for individuals and agencies/governments and organizations. I Made a Mock Model; In my prepping, I made a simple Model in Messa library (a simulation environment) running in a Flask server environment. These are all Python Language environments working together as a computing solution to the problem set I have. This is more like a prototype, and it doesn’t have a public facing user interface, and is only tested with cURL, a command-line tool to test how the model would respond to a user interface for intuitive and interactive use and visualizations [see in snaps - document embedded]. Also, I am grateful to JHUB Africa, Department of Computing - JKUAT for providing an environment with computing resources, and guidance and helping us be more confident in ourselves and leveraging the value of collaborative work in tackling problems together, and I made friends. Amazing!

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Can we break the idea, that just because someone live in a country, they speak the language? When I lived in Denmark, all international services I used were either in English or had English as an option - Didn't matter whether it was Netflix, Amazon, online stores, you name it. (More often than not, Danish was not even an option) After moving to Spain, the same services are locked to Spanish, with no option for switching to back English. Amazon, international online store, even some films and series on Netflix and Amazon Prime, do not have options for English, despite those options definitely existing. I am also receiving a bunch of messages on LinkedIn from recruiters in Spanish. Messaging me in Spanish, makes me presume that: A) The opportunity requires Spanish proficiency and is the common language in the company. B) The recruiter did not look at my profile, since Spanish is NOT listed as one of my known languages. C) That they are just copy pasting the ad to a lot of people who matches certain buzzwords without delving deeper. A recruiter once replied "People don't keep their languages up to date on LinkedIn", but why not just send a message in a language you KNOW I understand? Ironically, English proficiency was a requirement for that role as well. Regardless, this comes off as (I presume unintentional) othering and exclusion of foreigners, by not communicating in a language they understand. If Spanish proficiency is a requirement for the job, sure that's perfect then! But messaging a potential candidate without Spanish proficiency listed is a bit of a miss. I am not advocating that English should be the default language for services in other countries, but locking the English option out when it exists or presuming foreigners online speak you language, feels like odd choices. Pardon the rant, but I am getting a bit tired of receiving daily Spanish messages in my inbox as it just feels like a waste of time for both parties.

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Had a great AI breakfast with the Finnish AI in film, video, and VFX community! A human-made summarization of our discussion: AI in Video Production: AI is not yet a silver bullet in GenAI video production. A lot of work and study hours are needed to build a general vision and understand what different tools can do and their maturity level. A major bottleneck is still the lack of controllability in the output, requiring time, money, and extensive post-production to achieve a polished-looking result. Tools: Open-source tools like Automatic1111 and ComfyUI offer better controllability than commercial products, though they are not very user-friendly. Video-to-Video generation: Using a source video and then adding styles and changes produces the best results so far (compared to image or text-to-video production). Speech-to-Speech generation: To control emotion in voice output, record the emotion with a real human and use AI to modify the voice, e.g., making it sound like a high-pitched cartoon character. Lipsync: We are still waiting for AI to produce more expressive and natural-looking lipsync that matches human facial expressions, not just a static doll face like they are today. 3D GenAI: This area is still evolving. It works for low-resolution static usage but remains a work in progress for animation and re-lighting. Thank you Antti Karppinen for the invitation and all the other guest for the great discussions Riikka Mustakallio Kari Mankinen Emma Ilves Jussi Salonen Christoffer Weiss #GenAI #video2video #VFX #SoundFX #speech2speech

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Thanks for all the support and kind words yesterday! Here's a bit more about Mocksi, the problem and inspiration behind our work.

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“Efterklang: The Makedonium Band” screening during the 21st Edition of Millenium DOCS Against Gravity (May 10-19. 2024) is a good example of the creative process in action. Be open to other people and their culture, don’t judge, and find time to contemplate and observe. Finally, you can achieve a union with your team and create something unique. Sounds like Theory U ;) https://lnkd.in/dgNaWunT 

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Call for Developers: Free Apps for Associations in Finland 🌱 (133/365) Hi everyone! I've been thinking about a cool idea and wanted to get your thoughts on it. What if we brought together a group of developers to create free applications for social benefit associations? 🤝 Imagine the impact we could make by leveraging technology to support these organizations in our communities. From tools to streamline operations to platforms that amplify their outreach—there's so much we can do together! Who's interested in joining this initiative? If you're a developer passionate about using your skills for good, drop a comment below or send me a message. Let's collaborate and make a meaningful difference! Feel free to share this post with your network to reach more developers who might want to be part of this project. I'm excited to hear your thoughts and see who's ready to join forces for a great cause! 🌍💻 #DevelopersForGood #TechForSocialGood #FreeApps #CommunityImpact #JoinUs #SocialAssociations #VolunteerTech

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Dear diary, this is a last post from The Event, for now, I promise 😋😁🥳🎉 When I was at the event, I came across a great journalist from Yle , Ville Lappalainen and we have had a great conversation about ethical hacking, which first was a live radio podcast, and later it was made into the article - "A hacker can earn up to a million dollars legally - we asked five questions on how to become an ethical hacker". Which is true, by the way )) /*spoiler - with hard work, brave heart and creative mind 😉😎❤️ Us, ethical hackers/security researchers, also known as the white hat hackers, we play a crucial role in identifying vulnerabilities, leaks, searching for security gaps in the networks, systems, hardware/software , sometimes people, using our creative minds as we exploit malicious patterns in worse case scenarios, so that our clients would have an accurate security "cross-section" and an opportunity to fortify their "fortress" and defend their business from the real life threats ❤️ Like I always say to my/our clients - "It's always a great idea to rehearse and train for crisis with Us, instead of a real Threats, that are hunting for breaches 24-7". Because of that our activity - security breaches could be avoided/minimized, work environment will be monitored, policies and rules restrictened and hardened, risk management and disaster recovery process - audited. The interview and article tackled 5 questions: 💚 What does professional hacking require? 💚 How can you start making money legally with hacking? 💚 How does one become a white hat hacker and another a black hat? 💚 Can a white hat earn as much as a black hat? 💚 Where does a hacker typically get a job? With Ville we talked about ever changing "cyber security playground", that requires very much adaptivity, creativity & efficient learning. We covered ethical aspect. What could be an easy low threshold entrance into the cyber security field? ... and where typically an ethical hacker can find a workplace, legally and perform legal hacking activity? 🖤🙂 I've mentioned Ben Sadeghipour aka NahamSec , which is a great learning starting point for bug bounty hunting and learning ethical hacking. Dreaming that one of these days we would create a content together 😁🥳🎉 Also, cannot mention TCM Security and Heath Adams for creating a great cybersec school, where I am learning as well )) In a nutshell: Metropolia University of Applied Sciences Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences Laurea University of Applied Sciences Xamk - South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences Certs: - CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker) - OSCP (Offensive Security Certified Professional). - PJPT (Practical Junior Penetration Tester) - CompTIA+ Also, always & forever #lovewhatyoudo #dowhatyoulove & have fun with it ❤️🥳🎉😁 Ciao 🥳 #EthicalHacking #Cybersecurity #WhiteHatHacker #333interestinglivesofAnastasia #hackthenetworks #traficom #huoltovarmuuskeskus https://lnkd.in/dg6mf2Yz

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Meet the people of Solita. This is Emma, our Software Designer, who made a career change. "For me, my childhood dream was to become a hairdresser and I made that dream a reality. After a while, my strong desire to evolve and my curiosity to try something new took over. Now it’s time to realise my second dream!" So how did Emma end up at Solita? Read the full story from our blog: https://brnw.ch/21wLaAv #PeopleofSolita #SolitaLife #ImpactThatLasts #SoftwareDesign #SoftwareDesigner

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I work a lot with Solana for the last few weeks. It requires quite a paradygm shift to move out from Solidity. For example it took some time for me to figure out, that every tx in Solana is de facto multicall. You could just unite a bunch of instructions and they will behave like an atomic transaction. So, if you are trying to do a bit of uniswap v2 (that's what i'm doing now for my own sake) - you dont need any router, only pair. Just send assets to the pair-controlled addresses with the few instructions and then call one more to swap in the same tx.

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From the previous post, 👉🏼(https://lnkd.in/dZ8yn3jY) 👀 showing you a user storyboard for my UX project in creating a user friendly website for Thai expats in Sweden. Today I will show you a fun user Flow Diagram! 🎈 User task: To get information about getting started in Sweden as an expat. 1. Enter the website 2. Explore the first page 3. Click at the menu ‘Getting started’ 4. Read the information in ‘Getting started’ page 5. Click at the menu ‘Getting Swedish personal identity number’ 6. Read the information on the page  7. Go to external link provided  8. Come back to the website  9. Click at the menu ‘Getting started’ again 10. Click at the submenu ‘Open a bank account in Sweden’ 11. Go to external link provided  12. Come back to the website and explore more… It's been a fun journey! 😁 #UXDesign #UserExperience #PortfolioProject #ThaiInSweden #Thai #Sweden #DesignThinking #UIUX #WebDesign #LinkedInPortfolio

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🚀 Developers, we need your input! ✨ What do you value most when looking for a new job? 1️⃣ Company culture 2️⃣ Professional growth opportunities 3️⃣ Flexibility and work-life balance Share your thoughts! We look forward to your comments! 👇 #Developers #RecruitmentExperience #Feedback #Innovation #HumanResources

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