Time to introduce our new team-member Milla Kyngäs! She will be with us the next four months, doing her internship from Häme university of applied sciences. She will graduate as an engineer of ICT bioeconomy and circular economy (Information and communication technology, bioeconomy, bachelor of engineering) next spring. After spending seven years in southern Finland her goal is to continue with working after the internship, find an amazing job and stay in the Oulu-region for good.
So tell us Milla, how did you choose this field?
“Honestly, it has chosen me since the very beginning. This, I feel, is my field of genius and my passion. Since childhood I have been very interested of creating and building things, how stuff works, how things are done and why. Also bettering the ways of doing and how things are seen comes very naturally to me. I am a very curious, objectively thinking person with vivid imagination. Engineering as a philosophy is just how my mind works, really. Combined with nature and environment (my other number one passion), this is just perfect education for me. It took 33 years for me to have courage to finally grasp it, but better late than never.
Sadly, it just wasn’t typical for women in the early 2000’s to be tech-heads or nerdy souls. I was all about computers, Playstation and IRC back then hehe. The peer pressure and lack of knowledge affected my decisions in a small town and now I want to be a living example of how it is completely natural for example women to head to this field too. And that of course they have immensely much to give.”
For someone outside that scene those two things might seem separate. What do you think, how ICT combines with bioeconomy and circular economy?
“It is a simple, huge truth that in today’s world we need advanced IoT solutions and data-analytics for making things more effective. We must examine where the waste happens. For example handling material, logistics and smart factories (IIoT). What is more circular economy than that! When logistics become smarter, more electric, parcels can be organized more efficiently it takes away wasting several resources. And that is the very core of circular economy. For developing those solutions we need the people and engineers, we are now becoming. I think there is only one class of graduates before us from this field of education. Häme university of applied sciences has strongly devoted of bettering the global situation and circular economy values, also how they are utilized as a business, which it already is. We need a global change of the state of mind. Wasting resources in every part of production is simply not an option anymore. We need people who develop innovations, business ideas and better the old ways. Waste is not waste anymore. It is an un-utilized material that is just laying there un-used. There are magnificent businesses and success-stories out there from this changed way of thinking! Sulapac, Soil-food, Woodio, Valtra’s Agco-Reman, Demeca.. Just to mention a couple. This gives one a wide view of the massive range of possibilities on that field. With IoT we can make cars and transport-wehicles smarter by adjusting the acceleration by GPS. That leads to saving gas and producing less Co2. Or towerfarming, which saver soil and water, and of course must be monitored via IoT solutions and data analytics. I’m a huge fan (a nerd) of Lean-filosofy too. I remember The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organization, but they have such a cool technology-innovations for today’s problems. So many inspiring people out there.. I could talk about all this for hours and hours really.“
What do you think, if someone now got interested, where on the field could they find the most business possibilities?
“Well, at the same time it is hard and yet so endlessly inspiring, that the possibilities are absolutely everywhere! Look at the world we are living in. The natural resources are running out and at the same time we still throw things in the trash and to the landfill as the linear culture has taught us to do. That is the sad part. What is so mind-blowingly cool about this situation, is that we are living also the breakingpoint where there’s a huge demand AND support for the new ideas! People don’t actually want to live in the old world. They want to feel like their actions and decisions of consumption matter. This has spread into companies. Businesses too, want to do better! So one only has to figure out an idea, and then do it! Options are endless and everywhere. It can be an un-utilized branch current, an option to harmful material, offering substitutes for natural resources that leaves more nature untouched, making something sustainable of someone-else’s waste OR making something sustainable out of a thing that wasn’t sustainable before.. I mean, the possibilities are crazy right now! Isn’t that amazing.
I live strongly in a world where everything is possible. Someone just has to invent the way.”