As functional and accessible online activities are, we still acknowledge the value of face-to-face gatherings with our community members. We are lucky to have been able to host two gatherings in Shanghai this year. In addition to that, we hosted two bootcamps for Portuguese polytechnic teachers this autumn in four locations.

Demola Portugal teacher training bootcamp in Coimbra, Portugal.

Our active intern community in China has been enabling both online and offline events, webinars and career development workshops. This year only we have received over 1,600 applications from China and, in addition to that, we have active Chinese community members located all over the world. Warm thank you Fangqing, Aurora, Cataleya, Yvonne, Yadong, Flora, Francesca, David, Fu Suhanqing, Sarah, Connie, Jonathan and Limi from team 1, and Sarah, Sputnik, Elsa, Shaida, Kathleen, Francesca, Oran, Flora, Millie, Waterin, Kiki, Christine, Jennie, Jonathan, Allen, Crystal and Valentina from team 2! 

The project that gained the most applications this year was Next #MeToo, with 91 individual applications. Other popular topics were related to sustainability and climate crisis, fan economy, algorithms and user experience. 

Next #MeToo was a part of our global One for Humanity program that started running in March. The themes for One for Humanity were designed in co-operation with Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, and the idea was to highlight topics specifically related to the status of women, children and minorities, and some other massive, brave themes, from climate crisis to generational gaps of the future. By the end of the year, a total of 77 One for Humanity projects came to an end. 

We ran most of the One for Humanity projects with our global facilitator community, which means that we have had the pleasure of working together with our talented alumni facilitators located around the globe. Thank you Aleksi Pannula, Ankur Raval, David Huisman, Dixit K.C., Fangqing Luo, Janika Koponen, Krishna Sharma, Michelle Goh, Panu Patronen, Petteri Kiuru, Sofia Sibell and Swechhya Rajbhandary for your professional approach and precious participation in our community activities!

In the spring season we executed an EU pilot study about knowledge exchange. Read the study report here.

In September we were happy to celebrate the publication of the first national level implementation of Demola process with our Demola Portugal program. This year only, 301 projects started with nearly 1,800 participants, led by Portuguese polytechnic teachers as facilitators. 

During the year we were also happy to co-operate with University of West of Scotland, Catalonian government, TecnoCampus and University Pompeu Farba, Southern Africa Innovation Support Programme, AGS Zambia, Fudan University & Nordic Centre, Ikeuchi, Hokkaido University, Otaru University of Commerce and Resources Development Operational Programme (EFOP). We also started MYLLY entrepreneur services programme together with Tribe Tampere, Ensimetri and Pirkanmaan Yrityskummit.

We want to thank all of our community members and partners for this year and wish everybody Happy Holidays!