Mikko Koria
After design & architecture studies at the Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, Mikko Koria obtained the degrees of M.Sc. (Arch.) from the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland, a MBA (Design Mgmt.) from the University of Westminster, and D.Sc. (Econ.) from the Helsinki School of Economics (now Aalto University School of Economics), Finland. Current activities involve research and lecturing in design, culture and business studies. He is a Master’s Program Director of the International Design Business Management (IDBM) Program, a multidisciplinary teaching and research initiative of the Schools of Economics, Art and Design, and Science and Technology of the Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland.

Miikka Lehtonen
Miikka Lehtonen is writing his PhD at Aalto University School of Economics on visual knowledge communication in Scandinavian and Japanese companies. He has worked at the Finnish Embassy in Tokyo as a trainee and visited Japan several times. His Japan-related interests include philosophy, aesthetics, design, visual communication and Rilakkuma. In addition, Miikka works as a research director at ACE Consulting, and he has taught business modeling at Tongji University and on a boat from Portugal to Brazil (www.aaltoonwaves.com).

Antti Sonninen
Antti Sonninen is a graduate student majoring in user-centered design and International Design Business Management (IDBM) at Aalto University. In 2011, Antti has been co-instructing ME310 - Design Innovation, a product development course organized in collaboration with Stanford University that has spawned companies such as IDEO. He was also an exchange student at the University of Tokyo and has worked as a Japanese translator/interpreter at trade shows in the fields of design and nanotechnology. Antti will spend some months of 2011 in Tokyo to finish his Master’s thesis on Japanese retail business.

Anna Salo
Anna Salo is majoring in marketing at Aalto University School of Economics. At the moment she is finishing her master’s thesis concentrating on retail store design and how to stage customer experiences within a store environment. Her thesis will be completed for Aalto Future Store -research project, which is a learning and research environment focusing on the future of retailing. Aalto Future Store enables a multidisciplinary platform for innovations in the area of service retailing. During the summer Anna is working as a research assistant for MIND research group of Aalto University situated in the Aalto Design Factory. “At MIND we strive for industry-changing innovations”, says Anna. As a counterbalance to her marketing studies, Anna is doing her master level minor in Art theory, Criticism and Management focusing on musicology, which a joint program between Aalto and University of Helsinki Faculty of Arts.

Noel Lam
Lam Hau Yee Noel is an industrial designer from Hong Kong. After earning her Bachelor\'s degree in Industrial and Product Design from Hong Kong Polytechnic University, she moved to Finland for her Master\'s degree in Industrial and Strategic Design with a minor in IDBM (International Design Business Management) at Aalto University. Noel has always been fascinated by children\'s interaction with design elements--the exploration, the learning, and the mastery. These findings are core to Noel\'s creative process in communication design, services design, urban planning--and most of all, her current personal project \"Oranji is Oranji\", which is a cross-continent collaboration project about design and growth.

Tuuli Utriainen
Tuuli is wrapping up her M.Sc. degree after studying a wide variety of subjects from semiotics in University of Helsinki to story telling and neuroscience at Aalto University. Currently she is working at Aalto Design Factory, which aims to create a passion-based student-centric learning culture for Aalto. At Design Factory Tuuli has been involved with an intensive product development course ME310 since 2007 and currently she runs a research project on how global design work is and should be carried out in teams. Tuuli’s had the opportunity to visit Japan, appreciates the culture deeply and has developed a severe genmaicha addiction! In addition to tea, she loves discovering bold art projects and new musical interfaces.