Founder – Satu Korhonen
Satu Korhonen is a passionate practitioner, researcher and founder of Helheim Labs. She is deeply interested in all things AI and has a secret superpower of making AI understandable to non-technical audiences. Her aim has been to enable especially cybersecurity experts to understand AI, how it works, how to secure it, and how to thoroughly security test it. Known for her creativity and determination, she combines technical expertise with a strong drive to make cutting-edge research accessible and actionable. She is also the powerhouse behind hackai.quest.
She was selected by AI Finland to kärkinAIset listing (top women in AI) in Spring 2025. She is a mentor (Women4Cyber, Women in AI), board member of TurkuSec and a frequent volunteer at Disobey and other cybersecurity events. She is currently also a Chief Advisor in the Cyber and Hybrid Resiliency Research Group at Turku University of Applied Sciences researching the intersection of hybrid threats and generative AI.
For more information, list of talks, etc. please see here: About Satu Korhonen or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/satu-m-korhonen/
Network of Experts
Unicorns are mythical creatures for a reason. In IT the word “unicorn” refers to someone who knows all the relevant aspects of their area of IT and can create solutions by themselves without any help or expertise from others. In AI this idea of unicorns as mythical creatures holds especially true. It requires expertise from various viewpoints and areas to have the best chance of creating value. Here are some of the experts in our network whose expertise we value highly, who, for instance, write for our blog, whom we can ask for advice and viewpoints, and some of who also participate in our research and development in various ways. Do you want to be included in our network? Reach out to us through our contact form.
Tiina Lehtonen
Tiina, the second founder, is a data governance professional inspired by the development of comprehensive digital services, leveraging perspectives from data governance, user experience and data protection. Her extensive background in healthcare, along with experience working with the pharmacy industry, the private sector, and higher education, enables her to operate effectively in diverse environments. Her understanding of the connections between data governance, the value of data and artificial intelligence provides valuable insight into information classification in various contexts. Her strengths include visual thinking, understanding of sensitive data and excellent communication skills.
Marcel Rupp
Senior System Administrator & DevOps Engineer: With over ten years of experience in system administration and infrastructure engineering, Marcel brings a host of practical knowledge about cloud and on-premises environments. He specializes, and prefers, in deploying and optimizing services in on-premises environments. He is known for building reliable, scalable systems with a focus on automation, security, and operational efficiency. Plainly said, he just makes stuff work.
Aarno Aukia / VSHN
Aarno Aukia is a seasoned technology leader, entrepreneur, and cloud-native expert with decades of experience shaping modern infrastructure platforms. As Co-Founder and Partner of VSHN – The DevOps Company, he has helped organizations across Europe adopt Kubernetes, OpenShift, and cloud-native operating models at scale. Aarno is a frequent speaker at global industry events, an active open-source contributor, and a trusted advisor to companies building reliable, scalable, and secure software ecosystems. At Helheim Labs, he brings his deep expertise in platform engineering, DevOps strategy, and cloud architecture to support the team’s growth and technical vision.
Silvan Gebhardt/Openfactory
Silvan is a systems architect and product owner with over a decade of experience in large-scale network infrastructure, cybersecurity, and performance engineering. He currently also serves as an international ISP and managed services provider at Openfactory. At Helheim Labs, he has adviced us on the secure deployment and hosting of AI applications, including localized LLM-based educational games. His focus on privacy-respecting infrastructure ensures that complex AI systems can run securely on repurposed hardware, reducing dependency on large cloud providers. He is also, at times, a guest writer in our blog.