Creating responsible business activities with Gaia

Wednesday 10th of April, was a very special day because the
consultancy company called Gaia threw one of its few excursions.
The morning started with a company presentation
from Mari Hjelt. Gaia is probably unknown company for many of the people of Aalto University

despite the fact that so many of its employees has a background in
former schools of Aalto.

Gaia is a consultancy company with roughly 40 professionals (number is
growing) who are located in Finland and all around the world. As Mari
stated, "Gaia has offices in Europe, China, Africa and Latin America,
and we collaborate with clients all around the world through our
network of professionals and partners." Gaia focuses its operation
into 4 different categories: Environment & Responsibility; Cleantech,
Innovation & Finance; Safety & Risk Management; and Energy & Climate.
The company differentiates itself from competitors by being concrete
and by creating high quality understanding over what ever the case at
the moment is. In addition, they often are the mediator  when business
consultants, engineering companies and research companies need to work
together. For example, they might be creating a process how a city can
utilize more renewable energy, or making a research how global warming
is affecting farming in Ethiopia  or making an assesment what would
happen if chemistry factory would be destroyed during a war.

Mari emphasized the fact that by doing business, they help businesses
to make the world cleaner and safer. From their point of view,
sustainability is a win-win situation for both parties. From my point
of view, there is one win missing because by helping companies become
more environmentally friendly, they are actually helping all of us.

After Mari's interesting presentation, a consultant from Gaia, Laura
Hakala, with few of her
colleagues shared their backgrounds and typical weekly routines by
describing and showing how Gaia way of business works. Typically a
consultant has 5-10 projects ongoing at given time. An individual
project can last from 1 week to 2 years but the majority of the
project last around 3 months. Also, projects vary very much which
means that a consultant has different roles and commitment to
different project (amount of work to be used). Gaia's professionals
are roughly 25-55 years old and the majority are female (60%, editor
note: they wouldn't  mind if there would be more men :).

Gaia's excursion definitely left the best for last - the case
competition. Gaia utilized learning by doing method during the last
phase of the excursion. Participants were divided into 3 groups and
were given an exciting challenge: create a project proposal or process
consultation plan for actual case of them. "Winner gets a prize!", was
the motivator in addition to fame and fortune. Cases from which groups
choose their description was:
1. Solar city plan for Kangas area in Jyväskylä
2. Customer- and market-driven business opportunities in bioeconomy in Finland
3. Business development for sustainable charcoal production in Tanzania
4. GHG mitigation and sustainable development through the promotion of
energy efficient cooking in social institutions in Ethiopia
5. Development a consortium for sustainable solutions for post disaster markets
Participants were given restricted amount of time to work with their
case and after-which they presented their work to the "strict" jury.

Embed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldXBcVITqEQ !!!
Video description: Gaia's case video from Ethiopia - how to make
cooking in social institutions more efficient in Ethiopia.

Best team, team "efficient cooking in Ethiopia", was awarded with
great Gaia Buff tube scarfs. Their solution included some of the same
ideas that Gaia's final solution included. What was very interesting
about this case was that Gaia professionals were actually on the site
in Ethiopia to work with this case. They, for example, used local
artists to create a cartoon how to use this new cooker (reading
challenges limits the use of written information).
And, fortunately, also other teams were awarded for good work with
similar Gaia scarfs!

Thank you Gaia for very interesting excursion!

 ~ Eye-witness, Tuomo

A glance to the future of the mobile industry at Nokia

Our visit to the headquarters of Nokia in Keilalahti started at the futuristic Nokia Lounge, where we were presented with the latest in Nokia’s product offerings. In addition to the colorful new Lumia smartphones we tried out the new 301 and 105 mobile phones with maximum standby battery lives of over one month and some clever accessories for wireless charging and Bluetooth audio.

After the product introductions, Ukko Lappalainen (VP, Head of Business Development & Partnering) gave us a short introduction to the firm. This was followed by the host of our excursion, Mikko Muurinen and Benjamin Roszczewski (Managers of Strategy) presenting the key areas of Nokia’s corporate strategy. Many people associate Nokia only with mobile phones, but in reality thanks to Nokia’s wide R&D processes it governs a large and profitable patent portfolio. In addition, the maps and location based services Nokia acquired with NAVTEQ a few years ago are used widely for example by car manufacturers in the built-in navigation systems.

After a coffee break with snacks, Tiina Tapionlinna (Senior Manager of Strategy) told us about Nokia’s strategy in mobile phones including the popular Asha series with special features such as dual SIM cards, proven popular in the developing markets. Tiina also mentioned an interesting new feature in some of the mobile phones – the phone is capable of compressing data so that the consumer will have an even more affordable way of accessing the Internet. Kimmo Lehtosalo (Director of Product Strategy & Wave Planning) told more about smart devices and how Nokia has been able to incorporate new innovations such as wireless charging into their new line of Lumia phones. Marko Mahkonen (HR University Relations Manager) held the final presentation of the day and introduced us to the career prospects and paths at Nokia for graduates.

Dinner was waiting already at a conference space in one of the highest floors at Nokia House, where we moved next to enjoy a more casual atmosphere with drinks.  We had the opportunity to meet some young Nokia employees and even try out a new Xbox Kinect game! After enjoying the buffet and wine the journey continued to an event of Nokia Young Professionals at Grotesk, where we had the chance to chat a bit more with some younger Nokia employees in a relaxed setting.

-Patrik