Time to move onto the next stage! On today’s agenda the biggest and most nervous chatter-inducing event was meeting the partners. During the brief introductions by all of the partners’ representatives, quick glances were exchanged between group members which seemed to say “maybe they will be our match…or what about them”. Safe to say, the anticipation and expectations were high.
Finally, we were united with our partner, Metsä Board! During the briefing we got sucked into the world of bio-fibre and the future of packaging. Interestingly our challenge focused on effective, factual and ethical communication, a subject of which our knowledge at this point is still scarce, but which makes the challenge even more interesting. We feel that through treading through this, as of yet, fairly foreign field, we are embarking on an adventure that can provide us with a lot of new and exciting knowledge. We truly have the opportunity to step outside of our current ‘disciplinary comfort zones’. Throughout our conversation with the representatives of Metsä Board, and of CLIC, an innovation company whose mission is to find sustainable solutions to bio- and circular economy, and to energy systems at large. Good questions were asked and at the end of it we had gotten a good overview of why the issue at hand is important and we were no more ‘out like snowmen’ as the saying goes in Finnish. In other words, good groundwork was laid out. After the partners had left, we got to hear what the other groups had gotten their hands into. One of the groups got to go to Kotka and some to Espoo.
Then it was time for a workshop that consisted of many, many post-it notes. Thanks to the workshop’s questions themes, actors and problems related to the challenge started to arise. Even though in the end the number of post-it notes seemed overwhelming, we managed to create order from chaos with the help of grouping, lines and arrows. The results of the first workshop seemed promising and we cannot wait to continue forward on our journey!
Group Kasvitieteellinen PUUtarha