Chair of TEK's Board Mari-Leena Talvitie opened the meeting with a current review. She described how TEK’s activities serve the members in even more versatile ways now that the restrictions have been lifted. Talvitie also spoke about the campaign of TEK's CEO Jari Jokinen as he ran for President of Akava. She emphasized that, even though Executive Director of JUKO Maria Löfgren was elected the new President, Jari's candidacy benefited TEK in many ways.
“The election campaign for Akava’s President allowed Jari to address several important issues for TEK, such as new approaches, constructive dialogue and the significance of education and innovation policy for the success of Finland. Hopefully we will see some progress in these areas in Akava as well, as Jari will continue to serve as the 1st Vice President of Akava until spring 2024,” said Talvitie.
Chair of TEK's General Council Mika Hannula voiced the feelings of TEK members concerning Akava’s election: “Akava lost, but TEK won.”
Membership continues to grow
In the meeting, TEK's HR Director Kati Johansson delivered the CEO’s review, as Jokinen himself was prevented from attending due to illness. Johansson said TEK’s membership is now nearing 80 000.
“There’s not a long way to go before we pass the 80 000 mark! If you know anyone who could be a member of TEK that isn't already, now would be a good time to invite them to join us,” said Johansson.
TEK also rewards anyone who recommends membership with a EUR 50 discount on their membership fee or a gift card.
Data project gives TEK excellent knowledge management tools
TEK’s council agreement states that TEK should be an initiator in transforming knowledge work, produce proactive services and lobbying efforts and build a competitive innovation environment in Finland and a sustainable world. Based on this agreement, TEK has focused intensely on developing digital services and knowledge management in recent years.
Project Manager of TEK’s data project Matti Vähä-Heikkilä and Analyst Arttu Piri presented the achievements of the data project to the General Council.
“As a result of the project, we can transform the data that TEK has into a more usable form. For example, we will be able to automate member communication and services much better in the future. We can also teach artificial intelligence to assess the factors that affect the inclination to cancel membership, for example,” says Vähä-Heikkilä.
“However, the next step is to decide in what ways we want to use data in the future. Modern data warehousing offers a range of opportunities. Knowledge management is just one of them,” says Piri.
Council decided on membership fee and proposed several initiatives
The General Council also decided the amount of the membership fee for 2023. It was decided that the membership fee will be increased by three euros, mainly due to inflation. The membership fee this year was EUR 348, and next year it will be EUR 351. TEK has previously given a three-euro discount to members who order an e-invoice. This discount will no longer be applied, but the members who order a paper invoice will instead be charged a three-euro invoicing fee per paper invoice. TEK aims to be as carbon neutral as possible, and this is also one of the reasons why e-invoicing is preferred.
The council groups had put forward a number of council initiatives. The initiatives requested, for example, that the council documents be more user-friendly, that the right to be TEK's student member be tied to the right to study at a university, that the promotion of the interests of Doctors of Science be more organized and that the council meetings be developed to become more interactive.