The lathe was found at the national railway company’s (VR) machine shop auction. At 1050 Finnish marks, the broker knocked the mallet three times and the lathe went to a young man from Kuopio. The studies of the design academy were already nearing completion and a garage in the basement of the parents’ house had already been promised as a workshop. Next, a planer and band saw were purchased. The idea shared by two friends was clear: to start working as a custom carpenter for furniture stores and others who needed the services, initially in the local area and in time anywhere, even to Arabia. The year was 1993 and the company was named Woodi. It was suitably international.

You see, it’s no small thing to think about what kind of environments little ones need to be able to safely learn the skills that even a big one needs. To eat pretty at the dinner table, to tell and listen to stories, to work in a group and to take your friends into account, to count sheep – whatever life is all about. The journey of Woodi’s kindergarten furniture collection, and later also senior furniture, to the wider world progressed through trade shows. Habitare -96, Copenhagen and Milan -97. In the Faroe Islands, Germany, Norway, Saudi Arabia and many other countries. There are already many pins on the world map and many more to come! In Finland, the Minister of Education presented Woodi with the Children’s Day Award in 2000. In 2011, it was the turn of the Provincial Entrepreneurship Award.

You can only become a master by working hard and learning to see both the details and the whole, says Woodi’s founding father Mika Rissanen, the young man at VR’s machine shop auction. He says that people at Woodi are united by pride in their own work and vision, a desire to solve the challenges of different operating and learning environments. It’s Woodi’s job to develop and create the best tools for learning and studying – from kid to student.