FIRST study trip to St. Petersburg 10.-18.4 2010

St. Petersburg is a city full of history, culture and people. St. Petersburg is located at the delta of Neva River. All in all, it’s a home for more than 5 million people. The city was founded by Peter the Great. He had the city built with precise plan and style. Nowadays the historical center of St. Petersburg is one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

St. Petersburg offered an unforgettable week for us 15 Finnish students that were chosen to participate in FIRST Russian study trip. Our aim was to explore Russian culture, business and nightlife.


We Finnish participants were from several universities and university of applied sciences in Finland for example from TAMK, TuAMK, SAMK, HAMK, UTA and TTY. From TAMK we had two participants from IB this year. Our group was completed when 17 Russian students from different universities from St. Petersburg joined us. The teachers were Mikel Garant , Anasse Bouhlal, Jussi Okkonen, Oksana Yevseeva, Heikki Holma, Aleksander Polyakov, Taina Huhtinen, Ekaterina Tulugurova and Tatiana Khvatova. The program was held at St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University and was coordinated by Daria Kozlova and Tiina Vuorio from Tampere University of Technology.

During the week we got to know each other as well as Russian business culture in general. We had guest lecturers from InnoPartnership,Finpro, the Finnish-Russian Chamber of Commerce, Nokian renkaat, Rumpu Consulting, the St Pedtersburg Currency Exchange, Handelsbanken and Promaco. The lecturers were kind to share their knowledge of Russian business today. We heard success stories of companies that had entered the Russian market and also their difficulties when facing a new culture. The lectures raised interesting discussions of various topics. We also went to visit The Stock Exchange and Sokos Hotel Vasilievsky. At the Sokos Hotel we also got an inside peek to the rooms.


Besides the lectures we were amazed by various sites around St. Petersburg. On our second day in Russia we went for a city tour and heard about the history of St. Petersburg. We saw the Peter & Paul Fortress, The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood and the outstanding Hermitage. Some of us also visited The Kunstkamera which is established in 1714 by Peter the Great who was fascinated by questionable items from all over the world.



On Sunday 18th of April 2010 our group came back to Finland. We all had been enriched by this unforgettable experience to the spectacular city of St. Petersburg – not to mention all the international contacts we made!
By: Maija Peltola

World Summit Youth Award launched: Register by June 27

TAMK is WSYA partner since 2008. WSYA 2010 was launched this week, here is the press release:

The World Summit Youth Award (WSYA) invites once again young designers, e-content creators, writers and bloggers from around the world to enter their online-projects in an international multimedia competition: using internet and mobiles to put the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) into Action!

GET ACTION ON MDGs!
The WSYA selects and promotes best practice in e-Content and technological creativity, demonstrates young people’s potential to create outstanding digital contents and serves as a platform for people from all UN member states to work together in the efforts to reduce poverty and hunger, and to tackle illhealth, gender inequality, lack of education, lack of access to clean water and environmental degradation.

An application form is available from April 19 – June 27, 2010 online at www.youthaward.org

Online projects by youth under the age of 30 may be submitted in the following six categories:

1. Fight Poverty, Hunger and Disease !
2. Education for all !
3. Power 2 Women !
4. Create your Culture !
5. Go Green !
6. Pursue Truth !

An international jury of 12 ICT experts will evaluate the projects in two rounds of online judging, where the three winners and two runners-up for each category will be selected.

WSYA GOES BIG APPLE!
Winners will be invited to showcase their platform to heads of state, business leaders and civil society at the 4-days WSYA Winners Events, where the most committed and creative young people from around the world will be brought together with the UN Millennium Review Summit Leader in New York in September 2010. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered.

MORE BENEFITS
Next to the presentation of the winner’s projects all winners of the contest 2010 are invited to
participate in workshops at the WSYA Winners Events. All nominated projects will be presented online at
www.youthaward.org and extensive promoted through the WSYA network, which offers all contest
participants co-operation possibilities with ICT experts, business leaders, multimedia producers and
youth to youth organizations.

CONTEST DATES 2010!
ONLINE REGISTRATION April 19 – June 27, 2010 at www.youthaward.org
ONLINE JURY June 30 – July 7, 2010: elimination round of judging July 19 – July 25, 2010: nomination round of judging and winners selection
WINNERS EVENTS September 18 – September 22, 2010 at the UN MDG Review Summit in New York City, USA

WSYA home 
Previous posts about WSYA (Artmedia blog)
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Three TAMK students awarded in the Thesis competition

The national Thesis final thesis competition awarded the best Bachelor’s theses of 2009. Three TAMK students were also awarded.

The category Technology and Transportation awarded Kristiina Anttila (Bachelor of Engineering) for her thesis “Lämpösiirtotulostuksen tulostusjälje laatu ja siihen vaikuttavat tekijät” (“Quality of Thermal Transfer Printing and Affecting Factors”). The supervisor for the thesis was Päivi Viitaharju.

In the category Social Sciences, Business and Administration as well as Natural Sciences, Satu Hakkarainen (Bachelor of Business Administration) was awarded for her thesis “Sissimarkkinointi osaksi yrityksen markkinointia. Case ROAD-musikaalin sissimarkkinointi tempaus” (“Guerrilla marketing as a part of a company’s marketing – a Case Study of guerrilla marketing event for the dance musical “ROAD”). The supervisor was Elina Merviö.

Anu Sinisalo (Bachelor of Health Care) was awarded in the category Social services, Health and sport as well as Humanities and Education for her thesis “Klassisen baletin tekniikka ja rasitusvammat jalan ja nilkan alueella” (“Classical Ballet Technique and Overuse Injuries of the Foot and the Ankle”). Her supervisors were Pirjo Lehto and Marja-Leena Lähteenmäki.

181 Bachelor’s thesis took part in the national Thesis competition. 23 theses were awarded with 1000 € grants. The awards will be given in May-June 2010, and the prizes were sponsored by Kesko Oyj.

The aim of the annual Thesis competition is to make the UAS degrees more well-known, and to highlight the special qualities of the degrees, for example working life connections. Another aim is to develop the quality of the theses and to improve the theses culture in the universities of applied sciences. Over 20 000 UAS degrees are completed every year, and they all include a thesis work.

For more information, see www.oamk.fi/thesis

"Volcanic" IP in Virrat

Students came to Virrat 11 to 22 April to enjoy the Erasmus Intensive Programme (IP) "Mobile and interactive marketing, IT for convergence internet marketing & eBusiness management".

The coordinator of the IP Pirkko Varis from TAMK prepared the programme and we were happy to stay in Finland. This year IP started in the 11th of April and it lasted 12 twelve days which was not enough to get all the experiences that we wanted. Therefore some of us hoped that volcanic eruption in Iceland could help us to stay longer!


We had an opportunity to meet students and staff members from 16 higher education institutions and 12 European countries: Lithuania, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, Hungary, France and Italy.

The programme was arranged that the students could give their presentations on the topics which they were mostly interested in, to listen useful lectures which were presented by staff members from various European countries, and to participate in one of four workshops. Workshops were organized in multicultural and multidisciplinary groups. Workshops gave us understanding about internet marketing, integrated marketing communications & CRM, 3D cinematography – stereo perception/camera work and how to create 3D imagery, website design of a SME, multicultural teams and cross-cultural communication, impact of culture to the content of the website, business intelligence and e-marketing, Flash for marketing, Podcast production and IT tools.

The organizers prepared us not only the daily programme of the IP, but also they planned other activities, like survival expedition, the visit to the zoo, karaoke, and parties. Moreover we could enjoy the advantages of the Finnish sauna and the cold lake after it every day.

During the time in Virrat we improved our knowledge in eBusiness, we had the opportunity to work with students from various countries and of course to enjoy a lot of parties. Also volcanic eruption made our time in Finland more interesting, helped to improve the knowledge of geography and to come more close to each other. Thanks to all participants and especially to the coordinator Pirkko for a wonderful time!



Story: Dovile Pankaite, Kristina Okunyte, Simone Berends and Aurimas Rudzionis.

Forest, fire, food... FANTASTIC!

As spring has already begun, the Finnish Way of Life Club wanted to spend some time outside in the forest! Yesterday 19th of April a group walked to Niihama forest and grilled some sausages and marshmallows at the campfire.



The weather was quite cloudy but still warm and nice for taking a walk. Did you know that lighting a fire isn't the easiest thing to do in a windy weather? Well, let me tell you - IT ISN'T! After some blood, sweat and tears everyone was rewarded with a bellyfull of delicious stuff. For some exchange students it was a totallly new thing to grill marshmallows, they were amazed about this but in a positive way. Altogether everyone had fun and they got to know a new part of Finnish way of life!

Make sure to join us in the next CLUB next semester!!

Text & Photo: Miia