First talk as a freelancer!

Finnish training company Professio invited me to give a talk in their training event “Testaus ja AI” held in Espoo March 2026. At the time of the invitation, I had just created my company, smallest unit/format of official company, but registered nonethless. After a short consideration, I decided to accept the invite and in good cooperation from organizers, the topic of the talk started to take shape, taking into account the theme of the training day and other talks that would be held on the event.

My talk topic was “Laadun yhteisöt ja osaamispolut tekoälyaikana – tiimistä osaamiskeskukseen, kansallisesta kansainväliseen Nelitasoinen yhteisömalli kestävän QA-kulttuurin rakentamiseen, AI-avusteinen laadunvarmistus osana organisaation toimintamalleja, Osaamisen juurruttaminen organisaatioon ja arkeen” roughly translated as: “Quality communities and competence paths in the age of AI – from team to centre of excellence, from national to international. A four‑level community model for building a sustainable QA culture, AI‑assisted quality assurance as part of organizational operating models, Embedding competence into the organization and everyday work”

Topic is very close to my expertise and experiences in Quality Assurance and Testing during these 18+ years. I talked about four levels of communities: Team level, Internal community level, National level and International level. Also highlighting different paths to update individual or team skills e.g. certifications, self-learning, Practical experience and community learning.

There were very high quality presentations available throughout the day, my dear friend, QA colleague and co-organizer of Finnish Testing Meetup Group; Szilard Szell talked about “Building Trust in AI Agents: Solving the Communication & Oracle Problems in Agentic Development” and in his talk opened the workings of technologically advanced AI agent systems and neccessary ingredients related to these. Very informative talk indeed with one exceptional highlight: Shift In instead of Shift Left or Shift Right, this was definitely something the audience will remember. Virpi Tuohisto, also a QA colleague of mine frmo Vala reviewed in her talk “AI testauksen arjessa – hype vs. todellisuus” i.e. “AI in the everyday of testing, hype vs reality” the current trends and hot topics in organizations adopting AI. Her talk was based on the extensive amount of workshops they had held with customers of Vala.

After lunch there was a panel disccussion with the topic: “Tulevaisuuden testaus: trendit, haasteet ja eettiset näkökulmat” i.e. “Testing in the future: trends, challenges and ethical aspects” hosted by Laura Snellman-Junna and partipating were: Pekka Pönkänen, QA Competence Lead from Wolt, myself, Tanja Jauhiainen, QA Lead from Ponsse and Antti Jääskö, Senior QA Consultant representing his own company Antti Jääskö Consulting Oy. Good discussion about the current AI related observations in the testing industry.

During the afternoon Jussi Leppälä from Valmet gave a talk on “Kyberkestävyyssäädös ja testauksen vaatimukset” i.e. “Cyber Resilience Act and requirements for testing” focusing on CRA and its implications and requirements for testing. This was also very interesting talk and we also chatted with Jussi during the break about the importance of regulations in our industry and how they actually give us the needed framework and support instead of being a hindrance.

A dear frien and close colleague Pekka Pönkänen from Wolt gave an excellent and very concrete talk with examples on the topic: “Käyttäjäkokemus on osa laatua, mutta kuka sen testaa ennen asiakasta?” i.e. “User experience is part of the quality, but who is going to test in before the customer”. The talk included real life examples from Wolt application launching in different countries and what kind of testing challenges there were in those launches and also those learnings were good.

Days last talk was different but very important as well as Markku Yli-Pentilä talked and presented his learnings “Kun käyttöliittymä kohtaa ruudunlukijan – saavutettavuustestaajan näkökulma tekoälyaikakaudella” i.e. “When UI meets screen reader - accessibility testers point of view on the AI era”. He had some very real and concrete examples of screen reader use and testing services when being a blind person from birth. And he was delivering his expertise like audience could only wonder.

Finally the day ended in announcement of the Tester of the Year 2025 and the winner was Jamina Pöllänen from OP Pohjola. A dear colleague and friend, whose career has gotten a huge start and lift with all the activity she has been involved in during the last year as well as internally at her work and also externally in conferences, events etc.

All in all, a really nice day in sunny Espoo. Professionally and well arranged event. Many good discussions with event participants during breaks and lunch. Few new connections made too, some of which might lead to further cooperation…and that is the best that can happen in these events, networking with people in the same industry, sharing interest in continuous improvement and sharing.

Few pictures taken in the event by me added here also