Timo Honkela serves as Research Director at the Department of Digital Humanities at University of Helsinki. He started his career in language technology in mid-1980s. He moved to focus on data driven language technologies using neural networks and machine learning since the beginning of 1990s at VTT and received his PhD at Helsinki University of Technology in 1998 on natural language processing using artificial neural networks. Honkela’s research covers  development and application of machine learning, neural networks, image analysis, motion tracking and data visualization methods and tools for natural language processing, text mining and other AI applications in humanities and social sciences. He has served as a researcher and principle scientist in a number of projects funded by EU, Academy of Finland, Sitra, Tekes (Business Finland) and companies as a professor and researcher in three universities and as CEO of Gurusoft, Inc. in 2000-01.  Honkela’s strategic goal is to explore positive impact and opportunities of AI research in society for which purpose he has launched the Peace Machine concept and framework.