Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen is the Alumnus of the Year at University of Tampere

Prime Minister, Master of Social Sciences, Jyrki Katainen has been invited to be the University of Tampere Alumnus of the Year 2012. The nomination was made public in the Opening Ceremony of the academic year 2012–2013 on 6 September 2012.

Jyrki Katainen graduated as Master of Social Sciences from the University of Tampere in 1998 with political science as his major. Katainen was first elected an MP in 1999 and was Minister of Finance in 2007–2011. He has been the Chairman of the National Coalition Party since 2011.

– It is a great pleasure and an honour to be the Alumnus of the Year of my old alma mater, says Prime Minister Katainen.

He says he received considerable human capital from the University of Tampere. Acquiring new knowledge and putting it to use taught him the meaning of hard work. International influences both at the University of Tampere, and during an exchange year at the University of Leicester, were an important part of growing into his present tasks.

– Studying at Tampere changed me as a person. It gave me the opportunity to learn new things, it taught critical thinking and made me question taken-for-granted assumptions and, above all, I learned to generate new information and know-how through facts and theories, Katainen says.

According to Katainen, alumni can use their own know-how and contacts to benefit university education.

– I have had the opportunity to bring my own colleagues to the University of Tampere and in that way open up some insights of European politics and the European economy to both researchers and students.

Alumnus of the Year is a new honorary title. It is given to a former University of Tampere student who has by their actions highlighted the interaction between the University of Tampere, the society and the alumni and promoted the prosperity of the Finnish society.

Jyrki Katainen on the day of the university's Opening ceremony in 1993. 

For more information please contact:
Katja Kannonlahti, Head of Communications, 040 190 1329
The video greeting of the Alumnus of the Year Jyrki Katainen on Alumninet http://alumninet.uta.fi (in Finnish)