Technical Creativity Awards for outstanding work in signal processing and game industry

Anssi Klapuri received the award in recognition of his achievements in the development and commercialization of signal processing technology, such as the automatic transcription of music and music content analysis. Mikko Kaipainen and Christoph Thür won the award for developing WildChords, a game that makes learning to play the guitar fun, addictive and motivating. The game utilizes technology developed by Klapuri. WildChords has already gained worldwide attention and was ranked as the Best European Learning Game in 2011. Klapuri, Kaipainen and Thür received 1,000 euros each. They were nominated for the award by Business Liaison Officer Leena Köppä from Tampere University of Technology (TUT).

Other winners of the Technical Creativity Awards included Doctor of Technology Kauko Janka, Master of Science in Economics and Business Administration Juha Kaartinen, student of technology Jan-Henrik Landkammer as well as CEO, MBA Jouni Mäkipää.

Technical Creativity Awards are granted to individuals who have developed innovative and commercially viable technological products or systems. As several excellent candidates were nominated and the standard was so high, the jury decided to give out multiple awards. The total amount of prize money was 10,000 euros.

Since 1981, the City of Tampere has given out Technical Creativity Awards to acknowledge the importance of creativity and innovations for the local business community.

The jury consisted of Professor Markku Mattila (Chairman), Virpi Koskela, Tero Arvonen, Emilia Olkanen, Johan Plomp, Liisa Rikala and the City of Tampere’s Administrative Manager Raimo Huusari (secretary).