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!