Finnish Prof. Jarmo Suominen awarded Shanghai Magnolia Award 2020


Prof. Jarmo Suominen of Tongji University has been awarded the Shanghai Magnolia Award 2020. The awarding ceremony of the 2020 Shanghai Magnolia Award was held in the afternoon of 15 September and Prof. Jarmo Suominen was one of the winners.

Prof. Suominen is internationally influential in the field of innovation driven by design. He has won a number of awards for his idea of Service Logic, such as the Mayors Innovation Award (2016), National Award for Innovation (2016), Espoo Medal for Innovation (2016), International Innovation Award (2017) and Top 100 Global Leaders in Education (Dubai 2019).


Prof. Jarmo Suominen joined Tongji University as Guest Professor in 2012, and was listed as High-end Foreign Expert of China in 2015. Starting from 2016, he has worked as the Vice Dean of Shanghai International College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University, which is a Chinese-foreign joint running school partnering with Aalto University in Finland.

As a Finnish professor at Aalto University, Prof. Suominen has contributed his expertise to the Sino-Finnish cooperation and exchange in design education and study, made further possible by the platform offered by Tongji University and especially its Shanghai International College of Design and Innovation.

Based on his awarded innovation of using real estate in more effective ways with service logic, Prof. Suominen also co-founded Spacent, originally a Finnish prop-tech company now extending its services to Shanghai (among other locations). Spacent is specialized in enabling more effective space resource use of corporate and institutional clients.

Shanghai Magnolia Award is the most valued award established by Shanghai Municipal Government in 1989 to show the recognition and appreciation to outstanding foreigners who made major contributions to Shanghai’s development. In 2020, 50 foreigners from 19 countries won the award, with only five of them from the field of education.

Congratulations to Prof. Jarmo Suominen.

About Zazithorn Ruengchinda

ScandAsia Journalist • Scandinavian Publishing Co., Ltd. • Bangkok Thailand

View all posts by Zazithorn Ruengchinda

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