ideaXme ambassador

Pia Puolakka, Psychologist and Leader of the Smart Prisons Project

Pia Puolakka, Psy. Juridica, ideaXme ambassador

Pia Puolakka is the Project Manager, of the Smart Prison Project at the Criminal Sanctions Agency, Finland.

Ms Puolakka has been working for the Criminal Sanctions Agency since 2012. She started as a prison psychologist. Since 2017 she has been working in the Central Administration. There, she first worked as a senior specialist responsible for rehabilitative services including programme work, family work, and psychological and spiritual services in prisons. In 2018 she was appointed as the project manager of the Smart Prison Project. Her current post includes developing digital services for rehabilitative purposes and leading the implementation of the smart prison system. In 2020 she started as the project manager of the RISE AI project that is developing artificial intelligence (AI) application for client work and counselling in the Criminal Sanctions Agency. By education she is a forensic psychologist and works also as a private psychotherapist. She has undertaken further studies in Artificial Intelligence and digitalization for the purposes of the current Smart Prison and AI projects. She is especially interested in how digital tools can contribute to people’s well-being and abilities. She is a board member of the EuroPris ICT Expert Group.