Closing dialogue 9.12

Hi,

We had our closing dialogue on Thursday.  We had a guest from Finnish consulting firm Poyry, Professor Risto Laukkanen. He has studied mathematics in Helsinki University of Technology and microbiology in the University of Helsinki in the 70ties. Laukkanen spoke about the role of engineers in the world. He did not have any lecture slides which was a bit disturbing. The topic would have been more organized with using a few power point slides. The speech itself was very inspiring and interesting. Laukkanen spoke about his own studies and todays working life and its expectations. It was very pleasant to listen to him. Laukkanen spoke about need vs. demand. There needs first to be a need for engineers before there can be a demand, in many countries like Germany it is a lack of engineers currently. After some time there will be demand as well. Nowadays there are cheaper engineers for example in china and Brazil. In order the European engineers to get jobs, they have to be more competent or settle down to lower salaries. The demand of engineers is also affected by political values in the country. Many decisions are actually political, not technological.

The next topic was sustainability. We discussed that with current lifestyle 1,3 globes are needed. The world is going to be sustainable with one way or another, and Laukkanen hopes that it is possible with changing our lifestyle to be more sustainable. The other option is that large number of people is going to suffer from poverty or diseases, which reduces the population growth. Sustainability is related to risk management. We have to invest in the future the get results. We as engineers have to be able to adding value in our work. Finally, Laukkanen introduced his view of sustainable global technologies; it consists of sustainability, technology, communication and organization. I think his lecture was very interesting and gave good viewpoints to the work of engineers. It is very true that the world is going to sustainable in the end in a way or another. I really hope that people learn to life with more sustainable lifestyles. Someone from the audience asked Mr. Laukkanen if he would give up his summer house so someone else could live in it. He answered, that he would rather give up his house in Espoo and move to his summer house, very funny.

In the end there were a few questions from Olli Varis and then the lecture ended. The last course of sgt program is going to be in spring. I heard it includes workshops with for example Kemira. I think it’s going to be a nice course but need much time and involvement. I’m looking forward to the course.

Thank you for nice course and happy holidays!

E-lecture on Independence Day 6.12

Hello,

The e-lecture was held by Mr Matti Sinko from United Nations Economic Comission for Africa (UNECA) in Ethiopia. First Mr Sinko introduced the United Nations eight  Millenium goals, which we already have learned earlier: fighting poverty & hunger, improving education, improving gender equality, decreasing children mortality, improving maternal health, fighting diseases, protecting the environment and creating global partnership for sustainable development.

Mr Sinko has lived and worked in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. The country was never colonized, so there are not traces of colonialism like in many other African countries.

Next, the term ICT was introduced. ICT means Information and Communication Technologies, like telecommunication, mobile technology, services and usage. ICT has became a subsytem of the economy and society. It can be integrated to for example education and health care. There are many interactions with other subsystems and the society.

In Africa, Governments plays a major role in controlling economy. Real markets are larger than the formal ones. Currently the mobile markets are starting to emerge. There are large unregulated areas in the e- economy. Governments are struggling to control the e- markets. There has been a real mobile revolution in the developing countries. Some countries, for example Somalia and Ethiopia have not started developing as fast as others.

The problem in Africa is the lack of infrastucture and educated work force. The development has to happen in all the levels of society: education, health, government and business. ICT development can be linked to the millenium development goals. High education needs more time than the other society levels to develop. UNESCO has ”Education for All” program , which is needed in achieving the MDGs and ICT goals. Education and science have to meet in order to get permanent results in Africa.

There was also two videos to watch. In the other video, ICT development in Uganda (if I remember right?) was introduced. The second video was made by World Bank and it told about the ICT revolution in Rwanda. The development in Rwanda has been really fast if you take into account the political instability in the country a while ago. I got the image that the video was a bit ”coloured” with the ideas of World Bank. The situation is maybe worse than it was showed on the video. I knew that the Chinese are doing a lot of commerce in Africa, and there was a Chinese ICT factory on the video. The Chinese representative was very happy that the factory doesn’t have to pay hardly any taxes. Chinese buying property in Africa and getting tax revenues and cheap labour seems like a second wave of colonialism to me. Is there a real benefit for the locals or is everything going to the pockets of World Bank or the Chinese?

Transportation Workshop 2.12

Hi,

Thursday’s workshop was held by Antti Ruotoistenmäki from Aalto University’s Lifelong Learning Institute Dipoli. We were divided into groups and each group chose a topic to prepare a short presentation of two minutes. The task was called ”evevator task” because the groups had to present their views during an imaginary two minutes elevator ride, and get the ”board” (=Mr Ruotoistenmäki and Matleena) to buy their idea. There werevariuos topics to choose from concerning transportation. The case was Helsinki metropolitan area. The problem was, that the traffic input has to be reduced to get more effective and sustainable transportation system.

Mr Ruotoistenmäki showed us very interesting statistic on the connection between GDP growt and the number of private cars. It seemed that they have almost linear relationship. There are over five million private cars in Finland these days. The introducing lecture included almost the same features as Dr Rahaman showed us in the e-lecture on Tuesday.

 Our group chose the topic vehicle sharing versus private ownership. There were three main points in our solution. First, there are over 5 million cars in Finland, this means that ebery family has two or even tree cars. If the number of cars could be reduced to just one car per family, that would help a lot. The fact is, that some peolple want to have a private car/they need a private car if there isn’t good public transportation where they live. Second, vehicle sharing can be promoted by for example by putting road tolls for single drivers, setting special ”car pool lanes” or giving tax revenues for people who share their car with others. Third, there are many people in the city centre who don’t have a car. There could be special electric rent cars that you could rent and then return anywhere in the city to be rented forward. By doing this many people would use the same car. Another group  had almost the same solution as us.

There was an interesting solution to the same problem that we had. There would be small electric cars that had no driver and you could order them with mobile phone. The cars would follow metal spikes that are put on the ground, so they wouldn’t need a driver. This way every passenger would have privacy that is maybe the most valued feature in using private cars. The solution was futuristic but I think it could be a really good option.

This was the second last lecture on this course if you don’t count Independence Day’s individual work. Time goes so fast! I’m already looking forward to the last sgt course in the spring semester.

Monday 29.11 e-lecture on Transportation

Hi,

Monday’s e-lecture was held by DR Khan Rahaman. The broadcast came from  Canada. First, Dr Rahaman  introduced the term ”SUT”, meaning sustainable transportation. This means environmentally, socially and economically sustainable transportation system. The key terms in SUT are access, mobility and affordability. Sustainable transportation is environmentally friendly. Social sustainability means safety and affordability, meaning that also poor people should have access to transportation. Economical transportation means cost allocation and possible subsidies for public transportation. How are these goals met? Governance is needed in a form of proactive government involvement and consolidation.

The next topic was related to urbanization. Urban population growth especially inn Asia has led to intensive motorization. In countries like Vietnam, India and China CO2 emissions are increasing rapidly. This is due to increase of the number of vehicles. In these areas there are for example lots of motorbikes. It was a surprise to me that motorbikes are the cause of increased CO2 emissions in Asian transportation. I thought it would have been cars.

So is the transportation sustainable in Asia?

The answer is no! Some reasons listed below:

-          no development strategy

-          unsustainable transport policy -> new infrastructure instead of developing old ones

-          low income groups suffer, because policies favour private transport, which is expensive

-          poor can not live in city center because transportation  is expensive

Solution  Dr Rahaman gave includeded design of integrated transport sustems, analysis, planning, implementation, and monitoring.

The next topic was Europe’s transportation. It is estimated that  84 % of European inhabitants live in cities by 2050. Most of GDP is generated in cities currently and  40 % of CO2 emissions are from transport. Most of the road accidents happen in cities. Dr Rahaman gave 3 solutions: Energy efficiency, cleaner energy, less use of energy. Lots of policies have been developed to improve  the situation. EU research programme ”city vitality and sustainability” CIVITAS is focused on creating cleaner technologies for transportation. I have notices the change in Europe in the past 5-10 years. Nowadays there are for example electric cars and biofuels. The problem is they are more expensive than conventional technologies, and recently car manufacturer Toyota admitted that the carbon foot print of a hybrid car is larger than a normal car. In my opinion, new technologies are however an important milestone for developing better technologies in the future.

In  Canada: 80 % of people are living in cities, Mostly Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

60 %  of transportation is based on car, because of poor public transportation especially in smaller towns. Recently the situation has improved in larger cities in the US and Canada, for example bicycle roads have been built.

In the end, Dr Rahaman gave conclusions. To achieve sustainable transportation, teamwork, and communication between stakeholders parties (goverment, national, local) are needed. The use of public transportation can be increased by  for example road tolls  and mproving public transport. In the very end Dr Rahaman gave an interesting example: If you measure how many people per hour  can pass through a 3,5 m lane in one our,  the result is higher walking than with a bus.

In the end there were a few questions from audience:

Question 1: Is it a good option to change the place of capital to improve transportation?

Answer: There have been examples where part of the city has been moved, like Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Bagladesh and Indonesia. This can lead to better transportation planning. Not everyrhing can be however changed from the city center, because especially poor people in informal economy would suffer. Government offices can be moved. and building separate bus lanes makes public transportation more effective.

Question 2: More demand for logistics or transporting people? ->

Answer: Integration of service transport and transport of people means shorter distances and more sustainable transportation.

Question 3: Where does public transportation work best?

Answer: Helsinki and Stockholm have very good bus transport. Railways are effective in Germany and Tokyo.

Question 4: How to improve public transportation in Toronto?

Answer: By changing peoples attitudes towards  public transportation, for example with roal tolls.