Interview with Juhani Koivuviita, Community manager & coach in the Hub’s accelerator programme

What is your role on the European Digital Education Hub?  

I’m a co-founder and CEO of Educraftor Ltd from Finland. Our company is responsible for the Hub’s accelerator programme. My role is to co-design the programme together with our team and the experts from the European Schoolnet, who are supporting the accelerator activities. In the programme, I work as a team coach and support the participants’ growth and solution development processes.

What is your experience in digital education?

I’m a language teacher by training and started teaching online over a decade ago. Ever since I’ve been interested in experimenting with technology. Through my work at Educraftor since 2017, I’ve been working in the edtech sector and have realised the huge potential of the already existing and yet to come solutions. I also realised that there is still a lot to learn, both for me personally and for the learning ecosystems across Europe and the globe.

Which topic on digital education are you most invested in?

Although we are well connected, dialogue and the shared understanding between different stakeholders can still be improved. This is very much Educraftor’s mission, to engage different sectors into dialogue and support them innovating (digital) education. This aligns with my natural abilities and the competencies that I’ve developed over the years. My passion is to give and support, and as a team coach my goal is to stay present and open towards others, and then challenge but also support their learning process. Creating connection and trust is more challenging in an online environment, but in my experience, this is doable, when people don’t go hiding behind their screens, and the cameras and mics are merely the media to support the dialogue and collaboration.

What is your vision for the Hub?

My vision is that the Hub will become a tested and proven concept for hybrid collaboration across borders and sector lines. The physical community workshops are a welcomed element to nurture the community of practice. However, not many can take part in those. I’d like to see that the encounters between different members of the Hub could happen more as in a big office or a conference. The channels that we have would become the corridors or halls, where we could have the discussions and knowledge sharing in a more agile way. Life and work aren’t only scheduled Teams calls, but ideas and questions, and when initiated, can lead to learning and innovation. What is the sustainable future between humans, nature and technology? That I’d like to see the Hub bravely experimenting with and then accelerating and sharing the new practices.

Tell us your biggest highlight working on the Hub so far.

I’d like to share a couple of them. The first community workshop in Tallinn was a great experience, especially because of the group of people from different backgrounds joining it for the first time with open hearts and minds, and not being afraid to share, challenge and care for each other. The second one is the accelerator Kick-off Days in Denmark in June, mainly for the same reasons. And the third one is those calls and chats that I’ve had with different people inside the Hub: in just a few minutes we’ve been able to understand each other and our goals better and have been able to take new action. Therefore, I encourage you all to make brave experiments within the Hub!