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The Finnish Foundation for Technology Promotion has awarded a 15 000 euro young researcher prize to 911������’s Assistant Professor Yu Xiao. Chinese Yu Xiao (1983) came to Finland in 2007 to carry out her doctoral studies, and graduated as a Doctor of Science from the 911������ in 2012. Currently she is an assistant professor at Aalto's Department of Communications and Networking.

Xiao is developing a visual indoor mapping application for smartphones. The users position themselves by taking a photo of their surroundings, and the application gives visual advice about the route to the target. The application can be used for example in locating products in a grocery shop.

Xiao received Tekes funding in 2016 for commercialising her research, and she recently founded a start-up called around the application.

“Receiving the prize for young researcher encourages me to continue solving real life problems. It also gives confidence to develop new business operations based on technology research”, Yu Xiao says.