By Filipe Rebello (Team Coach LEINN at TeamLabs/)
There is a particular kind of magic that happens when you strip away the lecture hall. It is the friction of the real world
For the last 14 years, that friction has been the driving force behind how we understand education at TeamLabs/. Our story with Finland, however, goes way back—even before certain partnerships were formalized.
It all started with the methodology. The LEINN degree (Entrepreneurial Leadership and Innovation) that we champion was born in Finland, at the Tiimiakatemia in Jyväskylä. That is our origin. That’s why, for 14 years, we have been traveling to the Nordic countries with our students. It’s not a simple visit; it’s a pilgrimage to the source. It’s the need to walk the ground where this way of learning was first cultivated, to feel first-hand that Finnish “sisu”, that unique blend of resilience, pragmatism, and quiet determination that defines the country’s entrepreneurial fabric. The Finnish ecosystem became, from the very first course, our living classroom.
Over a decade ago, we realized that to teach entrepreneurship truly, we couldn’t just talk about globalization; we had to immerse our students in it. And we did so by going to the very cradle of it all. Over time, what began as an immersion in the original methodology has intertwined with other ways of understanding innovation. About 12 years ago, that initial connection with Finland found a new channel through a vital collaboration with Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences. Together, we built a bridge that goes beyond the initial trip to Tiimiakatemia, becoming a reciprocal learning laboratory stretching from Helsinki to Madrid.
In the world of constructivist education, the trending frontier is no longer just “learning by doing,” but learning by navigating.
It is the pedagogy of the unfamiliar. For our first-year LEINN teampreneurs, the annual challenge in Finland is not just a field trip; it is an immersion into the Finnish backbone. They aren’t just studying the Mondragon Team Academy (MTA) network; they are living within its ecosystem, forced to collaborate, pitch, and build their ventures in a context where the cultural cues are completely different.
This creates a cognitive dissonance that is essential for growth. How does a business model built on sunny Spanish optimism translate to the long, dark winters of the North? How do you communicate value to the reserved, trust-based Finnish consumer? These are the questions that can’t be answered in a textbook; they are answered by stumbling, adapting, and trying again. And for 14 years, we have been learning alongside them, refining our own methodologies by absorbing the best of the Finnish approach to education and innovation.
As we first explored in a 2022 blog post following a visit from their directors, Tuula Ryhanen and Päivi Kari-Zein, what began as a traditional exchange with Haaga-Helia has deepened into a two-way highway.
This reciprocal learning highway has now expanded. In 2024, we were thrilled to host a cohort from Haaga-Helia in Madrid during our International Week. It was a turning point—a chance for the Finnish students to feel the heat of the Spanish market and for our Leinners to act as local guides, turning the tables on the cultural exchange.
And the journey continues; we are already deep in planning for the 2026 International Week, aiming to create an even more intensive program of co-creation and cross-cultural venture building.
This collaboration, anchored by a shared vision with the Mondragon University team, confirms our belief that the classroom is everywhere.
As we told our Finnish guests back in 2022, our goal is to make the world a radical learning laboratory.
By having our first-years navigate the Helsinki ecosystem for the past 14 years and now welcoming Haaga-Helia to ours, we are building entrepreneurs who don’t just talk about globalization, they have lived it. Kiitos, y gracias, for walking this path with us.
Kiitos, and thanks for walking this path with us.
