Our team part 6: Ane

Hey, my name is Ane. Currently I’m an exchange student at the UTA in the field of Business. Because there’re a lot of exchange contracts between universities in Europe, the exchange possibilities were large. For me the northern countries have attracted me for a long time, partly because of the nature, but also because of their way of handling/organizing certain aspects. The student reports of former exchange students about their stay in Tampere where really positive. Therefore I decided to sign up for this university and so far I don’t regret this choice.

I decided to apply for the Smart waste flow project, because I recognized the problem which each company has with the waste management: wastes cost money, effort, capacity etc. but doesn’t add value for the customers. Finding a proper solution for this problem is really interesting and important, also to raise the environmentally friendliness of the world to a higher level. Right now the project has changed to households as new target group, which is for me personally less interesting because of the lack of business related content. However, also with this project we can have a positive influence on the environment. Within this project my official task is, in addition to the regular activities, updating the playbook (a document in which we record all different kind of information about the project, like for instance the problem, solutions, ideas, planning etc..) However, in practice we often work on this as a group because some consultation with each other is frequently required.

- Ane - 

Our team part 5: Henriikka

Hello!

I'm Henriikka, a 23-year-old student from Tampere University of Technology. Originally I'm not from Tampere but from a smaller town called Lahti (the same town that our Project Manager Mikko is from). I represent the business side of this project because my field is Industrial Engineering and Management. During this Demola project I'm also the Blog Manager.

I have always been into cultural things such as music, art and languages. I play the violin and I have danced ballet when I was younger. Languages are my passion particularly and that's one of the reasons I wanted to take part in this Demola project. Last academic year I spent in Berlin as an exchange student and got used to working in multicultural teams. I found international projects extremely interesting and I decided to take part in international projects here in Finland, too. 

Throughout my studies my technical focus has been on environmental things which is why I selected this Demola project. With our team I want to create an innovative solution that can make waste management easier!

- Henriikka -

JAM #2

Jam #2, held last Saturday 29.10. was the second and last of the full day jams arranged by our Demola facilitators during this project period. It was not a straightforward sequel to Jam #1, but a separate get-together consisting of workshops and presentations. However, it did follow Jam #1's footsteps when it came to the structure and flow of the day.

First we had a wakey-wakey morning excercise moment, which consisted of a few easy exercises to prepare our bodies for the day. After that the actual program started rolling.

Before noon we had five different workshops gathered under the smartly invented name Demolation. The workshops arranged were Business, Green, Design thinking, Managers and lastly, Arts & Media. The first thought could be, that we all attended the Green one, as our project is obviously about green values and sustainability, but this was not the case, but the opposite: all the five of us (we were five present that Saturday) attended a different workshop as was the idea behind Demolation.

I personally attended the Arts & Media workshop. The main idea of the workshop was to hear suggestions from members of other teams and to vice versa suggest ideas for others as we circled ‘idea-papers’ clockwise around the meeting table. I enjoyed the workshop a lot, not just because we got to draw and sketch, but because it was truly beneficial to discuss and process our project problem with others unfamiliar with the project yet still familiar with the Demola process. With the project problem, I mean the questions our group has already circled around regarding our project goals - the whole circle of waste and the recycling circle, and actions, and the lack of actions. New insights are definitely valuable!

Once the Demolation workshops were finished, we gathered again together with our group and briefly went through the ideas and knowledge each of us had gathered.

After lunch break, the workshops and presentations continued. Here is a few notions from the afternoon.

Pitching felt very difficult as after the recent changes we are not yet at the solution stage. However, what we did gather was the importance of inclusion of feelings in a pitch. We also learned about recognizing the stage out target audience at, which can definitely help us work towards a possible solution. Lastly, we learned a great deal about presenting, but I’m not going to share those tips here, but you’ll see what we learned later on when it is the time for presenting.

And the time right now is surely running rapidly! It was surely nice to gain new insights during Jam #2, but as the deadlines are approaching it also becoming clear that we also need to have an effective approach at this stage.

So the day summarized, it was really good to get peer to peer support and ideas from others participating Demola projects. And there's nothing new about the notion that we should recycle, but it's not all clear and sorted out. Pun intended.

Don't sort your biowaste? Feel free to leave your comment below!

- Matilda -