Namibia in Horizon – co-operation with water

Nordic Water and Materials Institute of SAMK is preparing a water-related project to EU Horizon2020 in Namibia. As a part of project preparations, project manager Minna Keinänen-Toivola from Faculty of Energy and Construction and project manager Heikki Koivisto from Faculty of Logistics and Maritime education visited Namibia in May and August 2014.  In addition to discussion with local partners, they visited a world class waterworks, which produces 30 percent of drinking water from waste water at the capital Windhoek.

Currently, SAMK is having two projects related to maritime education. The project under preparation for Horizon2020 combines the wide knowledge of SAMK on water, renewable energy (such as solar energy) and logistics and maritime education.

More information: project manager Minna Keinänen-Toivola, Ph.D, minna.keinanen-toivola(at)samk.fi, tel. +358 44 710 3063

Text: Minna Keinänen-Toivola

Phote:  Ambassador of the Embassy of Finland in Windhoek, Namibia Anne Saloranta, project managers from SAMK Minna Keinänen-Toivola and Heikki Koivisto discussed about the excellent relations of Finland and Namibia, and the opportunities that water can provide for further co-operation.  Photo taken by: A Trainee of Embassy of Finland, Windhoek.

Interview of the chair of the board: SAMK can compete with quality of teaching

“SAMK is absolutely involved in a competition and not just any competition but in a really tough one”, Anttivesa Knuuttila, the chair of SAMK’s board, states. He does not like antagonism and continues: “We compete side by side with other universities of applied sciences and science universities and not against them. And this is not all. We also have to compete with international universities. There are all kinds of MOOCs and other web-based solutions which tempt both the young and more and more even the old to study online. Presence is not that relevant any more”, he concludes.

However, SAMK can compete with high quality teaching. It will bring students to us. Knuuttila is delighted about the fact that SAMK takes one of the top places in quality of teaching. This is shown in the results of an inquiry which the graduating students answered to last year.

The processes have to be in order but that is not enough. We need people who carry out them. It is also important to consider the actual physical environment, which plays a great role, when students choose a place of study.

 

New campuses and cooperation

The new campus plans have heated the discussions on the Internet and in the meetings in municipalities. In these plans SAMK concentrates all its functions on one campus in both Pori and Rauma. According to Knuuttila the campuses are a central issue for both cities.

“The cooperation with Turku has now started properly, since Turku University of Applies Sciences is now a limited company with a board. The consortium of the universities of applied sciences is called CoastAl and within it we can have equal discussions. I’m positive that in the future the cooperation will become even closer and this will bring us many opportunities”

 

“Although people know more about SAMK than before, there are still many things which people do not know about. There has been no real hype locally about the variety of things which are carried out at SAMK. However, SAMK has now gained more visibility. Even I know only a fracture about all that is going on at SAMK and sometimes I get surprised when I read about all the things SAMK has been involved with and in how many things SAMK has succeeded “, Knuuttila says.

 

Who?

Chair of the board at Satakunta University of Applied Sciences Ltd

Administrator and finance director of Pori Theatre. CEO of Pori Theatre House Ltd

 

Photos by Veera Korhonen. Knuuttila was photographed at Pori Theatre.

Engineering students’ sauna trailer will be presented at SuomiAreena

– It is wonderful to craft something at last!

Both Ilkka Ala-Luopa and Harry Vuorinen, who are Mechanical and Production Engineering students, agree with this statement. In their opinion learning by doing is so important that it is worth spending their free time in this kind of projects.

They are now concentrating on making a sauna trailer for a national discussion event which takes place in Pori in July. Last year the students presented an electric car, so the tradition goes on. The sauna trailer really is a trailer with a sauna, which is attached to a car. However, the plan is that in the future it could move independently and it would be steered by a mobile phone.

The trailer is made from a caravan from the 1970’s and it has a colourful life behind it. Therefore, it will take a long time and many phases before a sauna stove will hiss and sizzle in the trailer. The Finns love saunas and they are always interested in all kinds of saunas.

In spring 2014 the Mechanical Engineering students have renovated the frame and made shafts for the trailer. The old interior decoration was demolished completely and the frame was built again with all necessary facilities for a sauna. The students from Automation Engineering will be involved, when it is time to build the remote control system.

“In the future, the students can use the trailer freely. However, before that we will travel around Finland”, Ilkka Ala-Luopa says.

 

Photo: Engineering students Ilkka Ala-Luopa, Harry Vuorinen and Jaakko Nieminen are excited about the cooperation in building a sauna trailer. Photo by Hanna Valtokivi.

MONTHLY IMAGE: Aino-Maria Myllykoski’s Truths, part 2

Maire Karuvuori: performace in Kankaanpää in spring 2013, duration five minutes. Images by Amandus Pedaspea.

It is almost impossible and also unnecessary to use performance as a means of thought manipulation and preaching. After all, the audience will detect the essential in the performance. There is no need to emphasize or cover something. Previously, I made great efforts to find an important topic. Now I can appreciate even those things that are part of my everyday life. For example, I can make a performance on a demented female pastor who is afraid of Obama and Osama and who makes calculations about the number of the Beast, because I know something about it. This is how the series “Aino-Maria Myllykoski’s Truths” was created.

I don’t make personal therapy performances but my performances are always about communication. Intuition, trust, courage and love guide me in my work and love is the most important component which gives rise to everything else. I treat people and my topics gently and with love. At the same time I feel that I draw a lot of love back. I’m also gentle to myself. I think that the most wonderful and thereby also the best work I could do would make the audience feel that I’m giving a present to them.

I have had performances which last several hours and where the audience takes a participating role and everything is based on interaction. On the other hand, I have made video performances and stage performances with show elements, where the audience is at the receiving end. However, the audience is always the reason for a performance.

Maire Karuvuori was born in Helsinki in 1984. See her homepage.

SAMK in figures

The third best! This place was achieved by SAMK, when the students who graduated last year, evaluated the expertise and quality in their own institution. The survey was answered by 97 per cent of the graduates from SAMK.

In 2013, as many as 1053 degrees were completed at SAMK

A record number of 82 of them were Master’s degrees.