Habbo founders awarded by the Nokia Foundation
Yesterday
Nokia released a
press announcement,
which for us at Sulake is of course brilliant news: Nokia Foundation granted its 2008 award to Aapo
Kyrölä and Sampo Karjalainen, the founders of our company and the creators of
Habbo.
Henry Tirri, Head of Nokia
Research Center comments in the press release:
"Aapo Kyrölä and Sampo Karjalainen have been chosen for this award because of their
contributions to collaborative media and social networking. The Habbo virtual world is loved by
teenagers all over the world as an easy way to meet new people and keep in touch with friends. The
design of the virtual characters is unique, and the constantly evolving features of the
collaborative game have driven innovation in an area where competition is tough.”
Research and Development is one of the areas that we feel we are strong at and thus it is
very pleasing to hear this also in
Jorma Ollila’s (Chairman of Nokia's
Board of Directors) press release quote:
"Research is what allows a company to not only survive economic turmoil, but actually thrive
once the market has stabilized again. R&D can be considered an insurance policy, whose premiums
are paid during good economic times, hedging against uncertainties in the marketplace. Those
companies that are able to focus their efforts and continue to create new, innovative products will
be best positioned as the situation improves."
Previous recipients of the Nokia Foundation's annual award were Lauri Kuokkanen (1995), Pekka
Tarjanne (1996), Linus Torvalds (1997), Arto Salomaa (1998), Kullervo Nieminen (1999), Osmo A. Wiio
(2000), Ilkka Haikala (2001), Veikko Rintamäki (2002), George Metakides (2003), Heikki Lyytinen
(2004), Moncef Gabbouj (2005), Mårten Mickos (2006), and Pekka Abrahamsson (2007).