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Name:
Jorma Heikkinen

Age:
46

Country:
Finland

Job:
IT Systems Engineer

Jorma Heikkinen

There is no set age when students take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Networking Academy Program.

Although it is usual for younger people at college or university to attend classes, all age groups can and do participate in order to learn about and practice IT skills, improve their employment prospects, and standard of living.

One man who has bucked the stereotype of the teenage or twenty-something student is Jorma Heikkinen, 46 years old and a native of Finland.

These days, he works for Fortek, a full service maintenance company, and is located in the StoraEnso Veitsiluoto paper mill. “My role is taking care of electricity and the maintenance, development and troubleshooting of the automated IT systems,” he explains.

But why in a paper mill? “The paper machine lines are actually very hi-tech, with many systems. All of them rely on data networks. And that’s where I come in.”

But Jorma was not always an IT professional. A mere two years ago he was in charge of electricity distribution at another paper mill, a job he had worked at steadily for 18 years.

After almost two decades in the same role, Jorma: “felt the need to do more with my life, and move beyond what was essentially a foreman role. What’s more, I wanted to educate myself.”

With that in mind, he began a course in IT Engineering at Kemi-Tornio Polytechnic. He soon discovered he had an insatiable appetite for IT. “I was hungry like the wolf for it,” he recalls.

In order to feed his enquiring mind still further, Jorma enrolled in his local NetAcad: “I started there in 2001 as a part time student and studied in the evenings, weekends and sometimes all night.”

Near the end of his polytechnic course, he successfully applied to Fortek. “I think the extra skills I learned at the NetAcad were probably the clincher. It was very engaging. It suited me like a nose to a head, as we say in Finland!”

Now Jorma has made a radical change to his career he has some advice to the younger generation. “It’s okay to focus on certain sectors, but don’t get bogged down in one or two narrow fields. Use your time to study as much you can in different areas, such as code, data communication, and the hardware.”

“Once you have an overview of the whole discipline, you can afford to specialise, and not before.”

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