Starting my own software business has always been a dream of mine. I’ve been interested in computers and the science behind them from my early childhood. I got my first computer, the great Commodore 64, when I was 8 years old and I wrote my first BASIC program for it a few years later. Since then I’ve had and programmed an Apple II and computers of all Intel’s X86 architectures, 8086, 80186, 80286, 80385, 80486, 80586 a.k.a. Pentium. I also wrote programs for an AS/400 when I was working at SGS Group, which was later acquired by DHL.

At SGS Group I wrote my first C++ program, Parcel Registration Program, which was used to streamline the warehouse allocation and invoicing process for a Finnish clothing brand Reima, who had outsourced their warehouse to SGS Group. The source code of this Parcel Registration Program (PRP) is available on GitHub, if you’re interested to learn more about it.

After the successful launch of the PRP, I started developing all sorts of applications and systems to streamline the operations at SGS Group, and later DHL Exel Supply Chain, for different client organizations including Intrade, Tradeka, Stockmann, Nokia, Element, Dressmann, Turo Tailor, Reima, etc., across the Nordics. Examples of projects included customer system integrations, internal reporting applications, customer facing web applications etc. as well as analyzing different ways to utilize new technologies, e.g. RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification), in the supply chain. At that time I worked with the following technologies: PHP, C++, Java SE, Visual Basic, IBM DB2, IBM Client Access, MySQL, Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel.

Almost 20 years later, many of my developments are still in use at DHL. This is a testament to the forward looking thinking I had already then. My approach in any software engagement is to make the solution extendable and maintainable, and the code, efficient, readable and understandable.

After DHL I joined a smaller software consultancy in 2008 called Nice-Business Solutions, or just NICE, nowadays known as NICO, which stemmed from the phrase: Nokia ICL eBusiness Solutions. This was a joint venture by Nokia and ICL to create a team of the best experts to develop Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) for Nokia’s mobile phone factories globally. At this time I also started my journey at Åbo Akademi to become a Master in Computer Science, studying Data Structures, Discrete Mathematics, Logic, Information Theory, Programming, Computational Complexity, Cryptography and Network Security, Computer Organization and Architecture and Artificial Intelligence. I also started my entrepreneur journey at this time, developing web sites and mobile apps. NICE’s Nokia team was acquired by Logica in 2010, which was later merged with CGI in 2012.

I wrote my thesis, Developing a real-time mobile application using HTML5 and WebSockets, to Åbo Akademi in 2013, about cross-platform real-time mobile application development, which was a hot topic at the time, when there were so many mobile operating systems (OS), including Symbian S40, S60, Java ME, Windows, iOS, and Android. I learned about PhoneGap, nowadays Cordova, and developed several mobile apps, which could be written once and run on all the previously mentioned mobile OSs. I wrote an app, called UV radiation now, for tracking UV radiation globally, several pocket games, etc. UV radiation now got featured on the Apple App Store in 2013 and my best performing app, Dice Roller 2D 🎲, had over 100K installs 📲 📈 🚀. All of my apps are open source and the code can be viewed via my GitHub profile.

During my time working for Nokia as an external Technical Lead, between 2008 and 2012, mostly in Finland, but also in India, I was facing challenges with complex system test scenarios, which seemed too time consuming for humans to execute. Thus I started studying a framework called Selenium, initially released in 2004, which was an open source umbrella project for a range of tools and libraries aimed at enabling browser automation. I developed Selenium based automations for the most time consuming test scenarios, propelling our development team’s productivity to new heights, and also raising the quality of our deliverables, which lead to trust and ease of mind for our Test Engineers and Test Managers, who were responsible for giving a sign-off for every production release.

After the fall of Nokia’s Mobile Phone division, I joined a Sonet Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system development team at CGI, where I managed an offshore team in India, developing an ERP system used by thousands of small to mid-size enterprises (SMEs) in Finland. I created the foundation for the Sonet Mobile solution and even got the opportunity to promote the Sonet ERP system on a Sonet Premium YouTube video.

Whilst working at CGI, I was contacted by an ex-colleague from Nokia, who invited me to look into a cloud computing ☁ platform called Salesforce. I was a bit sceptic first, since I had mostly worked with on premises ERP, MES, MIS, etc. systems. I decided to seize the opportunity, studied Salesforce a bit, got overwhelmed by the ease of development, convinced by Salesforce’s customers and especially their values, which ultimately led me to join Fluido, a Salesforce Partner in the Nordics, in the beginning of 2017. Since then I’ve been working solely with Salesforce solution architecting and development, helping some of the best organizations in Finland and the Nordic region, including Wärtsilä, S-Group, Silmäasema, Fazer, Kone, Finnair, Veho, Storebrand, etc. , across several industries, to succeed with their eCommerce, Customer Service, CRM, Marketing Automation, Data Management and Artificial Intelligence initiatives using the Salesforce Platform and related technologies, both locally and globally.

I noticed when working with my customers, that also in the Salesforce space, testing was too often over looked, also in engagements with a lot of custom development and custom web user interfaces. This sparked an idea in my head to start a company focused solely on web user interface test automation, applying all the knowledge and experience I’ve acquired during my 20+ years in the software development industry. I also felt that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now mature enough for supporting the software development process. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that there’s a massive opportunity to build something transformative in this space, i.e. in AI driven test automation.

So, I founded Convalidandum, together with my brother and my spouse, and here we are, ready to help Your organization become more efficient and save costs like never before. I guarantee that when We do a Return of Investment (ROI) calculation together, You will be amazed.

A company cannot exist without a set of values, so here we go:

• Trust
• Customer Success
• Sustainability
• Equality

These values are not in an order of preference, they are all equally important. And these are not only fancy words, these mean to us:

Yours truly,

Markus Karjalainen
CEO and Co-founder