Aaltoes 2027 · A vision by Jennifer Gustafsson

The year of community.

Real people, real building.

Aaltoes is the biggest student-run entrepreneurship community in Europe. Every year its board starts from scratch: nothing from the year before stays unless someone decides to carry it forward. I want to use that, and build 2027 around the people.

Apply to the team See the ideas

Ideas on the table

Where it could start

Early, and meant to change once the team is in the room.

Weekly

Fill your junk drawer

A different expert every week, running a workshop from their own field. The things you don’t need yet and will be glad you have.

24 hours to two weeks

Builders camp

Short and intense or long and deep. Build a real product: an MVP, hardware, robotics. Made with your hands, with AI as one tool among many.

Across campus

An ambassador network

People in every guild, club and school who bring Aaltoes into their own communities and carry those communities’ ideas back. Most people find their way in through someone they already know.

First step

Low-threshold evenings

Soft skills, improv, first attempts and no prerequisites, for people who have never been to an Aaltoes event and aren’t sure they belong at one.

Community is often the infrastructure that makes action possible.

The person who tells you to try. The room where asking is normal. The network that makes an opportunity visible. The group that gives you somewhere to belong before you have proven you deserve to be there.

Aaltoes started in 2009 because a group of students wanted exactly that: a place built for founders and builders, made by their peers. 2027 goes back to that. As more of life becomes individualized and mediated through screens, a place where people meet, try things and build together matters more every year.

Word of mouth

Every road in runs through a person

Most people arrive at a community because someone brought them. A friend who says come along, a senior who remembers your name, someone in your guild who went last week and says it was worth it.

Word of mouth is the most trusted channel there is, and it quietly decides who gets in. When Aaltoes spreads only through the people already inside, it keeps finding the same kind of people.

So in 2027 I want to build those roads on purpose: ambassadors in guilds and schools, events that make it easy to bring a friend, and a first experience good enough that people talk about it the week after. Every person who finds their way in becomes someone else’s way in.

  1. Someone says come alongA friend, a guild mate, an ambassador.
  2. A first evening that’s easy to say yes toNo prerequisites, no pitch required.
  3. Someone remembers your nameThe moment a room turns into a community.
  4. You bring the next personAnd the road gets a little wider.

What 2027 is for

Six things I want this year to do

Bring people in

Show up where people already are: at vujut, at club evenings, at other communities’ events. Make the first step into Aaltoes small enough that far more people take it, and easy to take with a friend.

Work as a real team

A board of people who trust each other and would happily be friends for a year. Shared goals, honest feedback, and nobody carrying it alone.

Build something that lasts

Programmes designed to survive the handover, documented well enough that the 2028 board can pick them up and keep going.

Widen who sees themselves in it

Entrepreneurship in Finland should feel open to the curious, the careful and the people who care about people as much as products.

Curate excitement

Events people talk about the week after. Founders, researchers and first-years in the same room, getting each other inspired.

Actually build

Hardware, prototypes and real products, made with your hands and tested with real people.

Real people,
real building.

The team

Build it with me.

I’m putting together the board for 2027. If you want to spend next year on this, tell me about yourself.

CommunityEvents and programmesTechPartnershipsBrand and marketingOperations and finance
Apply to the team
Jennifer leaning on a wooden boat at dusk, wearing a student cap.

Who’s asking

I’m Jennifer.

I study engineering psychology at Aalto and lead partnerships and community at wednesday. In the past year I mapped youth entrepreneurship for the City of Espoo, built a mentoring pilot from zero, and ran school visits and workshops that reached more than 500 young people.

I care about what makes people able to act on what matters to them, and I think a community is one of the strongest answers there is.

More about me