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Over 50 alumni and friends of Aalto gathered in Boston for the Dean’s Aalto alumni get-together
In the event, the participants heard the latest news of Aalto, learned about the US Government debt, and met old and new acquaintances. The event was hosted by School of Business alumni Tuomo and Tarja Vuolteenaho at their home.
After the warm welcome address by Tarja Vuolteenaho, Dean Timo Korkeamäki presented the latest developments of Aalto University and the School of Business.
He emphasized the significant role of Aalto as a source of new innovations and companies. He also portrayed the impressive recent developments of the School of Business in terms of global research rankings, student attraction and serving as a role model in responsible management education.
On the downside, he described how government funding to the university has decreased by 34% in real terms since Aalto was established in 2010, while the number of master’s degrees awarded annually have increased by 74%. Aalto has significantly less resources than its international benchmarks (e.g. Stanford’s budget is almost 19 times that of Aalto's funding).
Head of External Relations Jonna Söderholm followed by an update on Aalto alumni activities. She encouraged the alumni in Boston to engage with fellow alumni in the region with the help of the local Aalto Alumni Ambassadors, Tarja Vuolteenaho and Karoliina Muukari. Söderholm also explained that Aalto has launched a fundraising campaign – A! Sign of Change – with the Aalto-wide aim of engaging 1500 donors and raising 30 million euros by the end of 2026. The audience pointed out that the figures are quite modest by US standards, where the “giving back” culture is far more advanced.
The hosts received a warm applause when Söderholm announced that Tuomo and Tarja Vuolteenaho are serving as role models, as they have promised to match all donations made by individuals to international student exchange at the School of Business up to 1 million USD until the end of 2025.
A friendly debate
The highlight of the evening was the informative and entertaining keynote – or friendly debate – by Tuomo Vuolteenaho and Randy Cohen (Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at Harvard Business School) on the topic “Can the U.S. Government debt crisis be avoided”.
The scenarios painted by Tuomo Vuolteenaho ended in the conclusion that there is a need to reduce the primary deficit by 10% of GDP to make the debt sustainable in the new cold war.
Randy Cohen argued more optimistically that the reduction rate needed is significantly smaller, but both agreed that some sort of crisis will be needed in order to rectify the situation. Solutions such as a federal value added tax or cutting 1/3 of discretionary non-defense spending can politically only be implemented in a crisis, which is deemed to be serious enough.
The lively discussion among old and new friends continued in the beautiful venue well past the official ending time of the event.
The purpose of these alumni events organized worldwide is to strengthen the Aalto University alumni community also outside Finland. In recent years, the leadership of Aalto University has met alumni in places such as New York, Los Angeles, Palo Alto and Istanbul. Over the past nine years, the Dean of the School of Business has hosted alumni events in Boston, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Brussels, Singapore, Seoul, Palo Alto, New York, London, Stockholm and Stanford University campus (multiple times in some of these locations).
For more information:
Jonna Söderholm
Head of External Relations, School of Business
jonna.soderholm@aalto.fi
A! Sign of Change
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