Hannu Helminen

Software engineer at Google Switzerland (Zurich), motivated by large-scale numerical and computational problems. Previously spent about ten years in medical technology, working on efficient numerical computation, 3D image processing and registration for radiotherapy and neurosurgery. Holds a Master of Science in Information Technology from the University of Oulu.

Hannu Helminen represented Finland at the 30th International Mathematical Olympiad (Braunschweig, 1989), scoring 13 points and earning an Honourable Mention. He went on to a career in scientific computing: a Master of Science in Information Technology at the University of Oulu, medical-imaging research at Oulu University Hospital's Neurosurgical Research Unit (neuronavigator modeling, non-rigid 3D registration, dose-calculation for radiotherapy), then ~10 years in the medical field at Varian Medical Systems Finland. He is currently a software engineer at Google Switzerland in Zurich and a named inventor on Google patents, including work underlying the WebP image format.

Details

LocationZurich, Switzerland

Company sitegoogle.com

UniversityUniversity of Oulu

3D medical image processingNon-rigid image registrationNumerical computationRadiotherapy dose calculationSoftware engineering

Notes

Represented Finland at the 30th IMO in Braunschweig (West Germany), July 1989, scoring 13 points (P4=7, P5=6) and earning an Honourable Mention - the strongest Finnish result that year after Jukka Kohonen and Kimmo Uutela.Jul 1989
His medical-imaging research (photon/electron transport, analytical anisotropic dose algorithm) is co-authored with Jyrki Alakuijala; both later moved to Google and both appear as WebP-era co-inventors - a durable working partnership across companies.Nov 10, 2022
Named co-inventor on Google IPR tied to the WebP image format (optimized backward reference selection with reduced entropy coding), placing him in the small group that built a widely deployed web image format.Nov 10, 2022
Same Oulu medical-imaging thread runs through his academic and industry career: a 1993 IEEE neuronavigator/rendering paper from Oulu University Hospital's Neurosurgical Research Unit, 2003 MICCAI work on non-rigid 3D registration, then ~10 years at Varian on radiotherapy dose calculation - a single continuous research line from neuronavigation to commercial cancer-therapy software.2003
Google patent US20150199718A1 'Selecting content items using entities of search results' lists him as an inventor - evidence his Google work spans search/ads content selection, not only image codecs.Jan 14, 2014
Career arc is Oulu-rooted: studied and worked in Oulu (Oulu University Hospital, Onesys, Varian-Dosetek) before the Varian Finland years and the eventual Google Switzerland role in Zurich.
Co-founded Bitcraft Ay, the only listed venture of his own - a small Finnish company, not a scaled startup; he has otherwise been an employee-researcher/engineer rather than a founder-operator.