Ulla Häggblom’s professional background is in forest industry and her main expertise is on fiber management and innovations of novel fiber-based products. The current Bioproduct Engineering degree programme has been developed in her lead in close interaction with working life to meet the needs of chemical- and forest industry. Currently she is working as researcher in the Applied Research Center of Tampere University of Applied Sciences.
Piia Kanto’s professional background is in chemistry. Currently Piia is working as a Senior Lecturer in Laboratory Engineering degree program at Tampere University of Applied Sciences. She is constantly developing her teaching to meet the needs of future professionals. Piia has experience of working in various projects related to sustainability and circular economy as well.
For some ten years ago, Ulla and her colleagues, created unique learning environment “Talent Factory”. The aim of this was to bring the working life actions into the studies right in the beginning for the first-year students in the Bioproduct engineering programme. The studies are based on team pedagogy and take place in close connection with companies and their representatives. The learning outcomes are highly supported by team coaches and the participating companies.
Inspired by the success and very positive feedback both from the students, teachers and companies gained from the Bioproduct’s Talent Factory, the same model was launched in the Laboratory Engineering programme in spring 2022. An additional success factor in this slightly modified case was that this was applied for the third-year students instead of first-year students. This gave a possibility to integrate advanced professional courses to this learning concept. The students gained thus a strong professional view combined with working life needs, which helped them to utilise these skills later in their future career.

The background of the invitation is based on the visit of the Biotech Tunisia project’s delegation at TAMK in September 2023. Ulla and Piia were asked to give a presentation about working life-oriented education. As feedback of this, the project coordinator sent an invitation to give the same presentation in the closing event of Biotech Tunisia project in Tunisia in July 2024. The audience was very interested in the presentation and kept asking questions throughout the whole event. The way of presentation got excellent feedback. The presentation was given as a dialog where Ulla was presenting the concept and asking questions from Piia, who has an experience as coach in this learning environment. The chemistry between the presenters was acknowledged and we were given a nick name “pedagogical twins”.
Text: Principal Lecturer Dr. Ulla Häggblom and Senior Lecturer Ph.Lic. Piia Kanto, TAMK
Pictures:
Picture 1: Syed Mubaraz
Picture 2: Mark Curcher, TAMK