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Kone Foundation’s activities

24.08.2016

A peek into the past

Kone Foundation turns 60 this year, and in order to celebrate that we start a series of columns that review the phases of the foundation.






Tarja Vikström, MA, starts a series of columns in which we learn about the Kone Foundation’s 60-year history. First we will look at the time when the foundation was established, learn about President Heikki Herlin (often referred to by his Finnish honorary title “vuorineuvos”), and look at some of the stories about the grant process in the 1950s and 1960s. In the second part, we will meet Professors Emeritus Risto Alapuro and Erkki Haukioja, previous members of the Kone Foundation Board of Trustees. In the third part, we will discuss the years of change and growth after the turn of the millennium, when the dust of the good old boys from by-gone decades was finally shaken off and Hanna Nurminen and Ilona Herlin laid a new foundation for Kone Foundation’s operations. Finally, we will take a look at the foundation’s whole 60-year history, and show where the money came from and where it went, and how Kone Foundation became a significant promotor of Finnish culture and science.

Read the second part: The busy years of growth

Read the first part: Grant applications submitted by the president of the corporation

Read Tarja Vikström’s blog entry Good brothers and the best of sisters