Tag: Short exchange
HUMINT Student Conference in Macedonia
This November me and other Metropolia Business School students had the opportunity to participate in the HUMINT Student Conference hosted by the American University College Skopje in North Macedonia. The programme brought together students from across Europe for an intensive and inspiring week focused on diversity and inclusion, a topic that is deeply meaningful to me both personally and professionally. As someone who truly values inclusive practices in society, in the workplace and within my academic field, this programme felt like the perfect environment to continue learning and expanding my understanding. Throughout the week I worked alongside students from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Romania, North Macedonia and Finland. Being part of such a diverse group created a genuinely enriching learning environment where every conversation challenged assumptions and offered new perspectives. The curriculum combined academic insight with practical exposure. We engaged in peer group work where we explored themes connected to diversity, equity and inclusion. Guest speakers and company presentations offered valuable insight into how these principles are implemented within different organisational contexts. The programme also created many opportunities for networking with both fellow students and professionals, which helped build connections that extended beyond the classroom. Taking part in the HUMINT Programme was an inspiring and transformative experience. One of the aspects that made the week especially memorable was the cultural and social part organised by the local students. We explored Skopje together through a city tour and visits to museums, and we had the chance to enjoy shared dinners and evening events that showcased the warmth and hospitality of North Macedonia. These moments allowed us to connect not only academically but also personally, creating friendships and memories that will stay with me for a long time. Luckily I also received Erasmus+ Blended Intesive Programme funding that covered the majority of the occurred costs. At the end of the programme each group presented a project linked to a topic within the diversity and inclusion field. My group focused on gender inclusivity in organisations. Preparing and delivering this presentation was a genuinely eye-opening experience, as it encouraged us to reflect on current challenges and innovations in the field while learning from the varied backgrounds of our team members. Presenting our work to the wider group was a moment of pride and motivation to continue developing my expertise in this area. Taking part in the HUMINT Programme was an inspiring and transformative experience. It strengthened my passion for creating inclusive environments and gave me new tools for my studies and career in HR. Most of all it reminded me how powerful learning becomes when it is shared with people from different cultures who are committed to making a positive impact. I am grateful for this enriching experience and determined to continue promoting equality and inclusive practices in the future of workplaces.
Erasmus+ Inclusion Support enabled me to join the Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) in Portugal!
The story about student exchange was almost unrealistic for me. I am single mom of three kids. However, my oldest child is already 18 and my two small boys are living with me. Me and Robin started studying in the same year. I started with bachelor program in International Business and Logistics (IBL) at Metropolia, and he went to first grade at school. My youngest one was five years old in those days. The idea about being an exchange student was a personal long-lasting dream, but somehow I felt it is not applicable for me. For me it was way too complicated to change a country, especially when having a lot of responsibilities at home already. Time went fast... Kids become more confident and I tried to apply for 6 months study exchange in Spain. The reason for choosing this country – I speak Spanish a little and would like to improve knowledge and get another European perspective to my study field. However, I was already doing my final study year and long-term exchange did not anymore fit into my degree study plan. So, the exchange was not a possibility at that time and would have postponed my graduation. Then the idea sort of faded away, until on one day I got an email about FinBank challenge in Portugal, Blended Intensive Programme about Banking and Finance study with Setúbal Polytechnic Institute! The program promised to be intensive and during one week in Portugal should be presented innovation for banking sector related to design thinking and creativity. Additionally, we were able to meet with students from all over Europe online. I applied and got selected! I have been so lucky when Erasmus+ programme and International Relations Adviser in Metropolia nominated me as exchange student for this programme. That really meant a lot for me! Without funding from Erasmus+ Blended Mobility I couldn’t have been able to cover the expenses of travelling and living on top of my family's other expenses. Our intensive finance course in Setúbal was held in May 2024. A great value is that Erasmus+ programme supports students with families with additional inclusion support. This made me feel that Metropolia cares about young parents a lot. My total financial support was almost 1200 euros as I was entitled for the inclusion support, travel grant and the program day support! This is really good form of support, if you know how to take care of the arrangements correctly! This BIP about Finance was well organized by Portuguese colleagues. Professor Ana Rolo from Setúbal Polytechnic Institute provided each student team very good guidance. So, even though my major, Logistics sector is not that much finance and banking-oriented, but it was not difficult to get in to idea and join the team work and start learning! Getting ready for an adventure! From Metropolia we traveled to Portugal together in a group of five Metropolia Business School students. In the actual group work project, there were students from Norway, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania and Belgium. Luckily, we quickly divided the tasks and got really motivated about the topic. Actually, our project was successfully completed one day before deadline. All in all, I was able to gather many lovely experiences from Portugal as the Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal created an amazing program for the students. For example, we visited Palácio da Bacalhôa located in São Simão, Azeitão, Setúbal, wine and cultural tour, went to some nice beaches by the ocean and even a natural park. Our lunch was in a most beautiful restaurant of the city - Casa da Baía. The communication with professors was smooth as we were able to ask questions, but also the work in the group of students was highly enriching and brought some new perspectives! All in all, a brilliant experience from Erasmus+ programme. I’m so thankful for International Relations Adviser and exchange possibilities at Metropolia. Because of them - I could see the ocean. Last but not least; Many greetings to my teammates who make amazing effort on presentation day! Tips based on my experience: Learn all the possible languages Touch an ocean wave and make a wish Choose the most interesting exchange programme for you. Make it happen! Julia S.
Singapore, an Asian roundtrip in the city state
As a part of the Metropolia UAS and Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) joint project Dosis, we were the lucky ones to have the chance to attend an intensive exchange week in Singapore. There were five of us students and three professors from Metropolia UAS who traveled to Singapore for a one week express exchange. In the Dosis project students from both Universities work together to create scoping reviews on various topics. The express exchange to Singapore was the culmination of our joint article projects and a dedicated time for face-to-face workshops and learning experiences after working together remotely for a year or so. *We met some of the students and the SIT professors earlier in the spring as they were visiting Finland on their behalf. Eventually it turned out that the four months from the approval to attend to the express exchange turned out to pass quite fast, and finally on 12th of August we arrived in Singapore. After the weekend of getting to know our way in Singapore, the actual intensive week started by an introduction to SIT’s Dover campus. We were given a tour of the SIT campus where we got to see our Singaporean fellows’ studying facilities. We also got to see some innovation and learning empowering tech. Later on, we workshopped some focal points of our article manuscripts, expected to be submitted later this year. During the intensive week, collaboration among Finnish and Singaporean health tech enterprises and the participating Universities was promoted to foster the possibilities of new joint projects. Relating to that objective SIT organized a seminar with Finnish and Singaporean enterprises and other health care and technology related keynote speakers. They brought out their views to the current state-of-the-art and future perspectives of advancements in health care digitalization and in health tech. The collaboration between the health tech industry and Universities also included company visits to Phillips's, Siemens Healthineers' and SenseTime's Singaporean headquarters and showrooms. During the visits, the health tech companies demonstrated their visions of developing technological solutions in improving the patients' experiences during treatments and stay in hospital and creating more seamless care pathways from home to hospital and back. The companies presented the possibilities of technologies such as virtual and augmented reality in training the future health care professionals to get acquainted with the technologies before moving on to actual clinical practices. SenseTime provided us with an overview of the use of artificial intelligence technologies centered more to our everyday lives. For understandable reasons the practical demos were focused on the technologies that are already applied, rather than the technological advancements that are possibly emerging in the future. The visits and seminars before and during the intensive week have enlightened us that the scoping reviews and other investigatory work conducted related to the Dosis project is operating at the cutting edge when it comes to advancements in health tech. The project overall has provided us with fair insight to the application of artificial intelligence in medical imaging and other medical applications, that are state-of-the-art or just emerging somewhere in the near or distant future. Cultural exchange Alongside the official project program, we experienced Singapore and its corners through local eyes. The students who visited Finland earlier in the spring treated us with genuine Singaporean hospitality and guided us through experiences we would not have experienced relying only on the typical tourist guides of Singapore. Singaporean food, sightseeing and souvenirs - our friendly Singaporean hosts shared tips and helped us get the most out of our stay. Thai style steamboat dining experience, best hawker food courts, hipster shopping streets, best underground places to try out Singaporean and Asian specialities such as frog porridge, chili crabs and durian fruit, you name it! We will never forget the hospitality of our Singaporean fellow students, some of them who had already graduated, and still came to meet us, thank you Shawn, Darren, Melissa, Chris and Zhuo and the professors Frank and Cheryl, and other SIT staff (special thanks to Desmond and Charmaine). ❤️ Blog post written by the Metropolia students: Ella Lonka, Janina Saarinen, Arttu Sundell, Emilia Larmala ja Mika Nieminen
Student Stories: Berlin Sustainable Week, Service Design Project
Metropolia's student Janike Heimonen wrote us a blog post of the project she participated in Berlin. Service Design Project I got selected to participate on the Sustainability Week Program 2, Service Design Project organized by Berlin School of Economics and Law. During the program we worked as a team and our team was given a task to design a new shopping experience for students to increase attractiveness of BSRs second hand shop NochMall. The research process took place in seven phases and focused on solving the problem of low brand awareness and targeting the students living in Berlin. The seven phases of the project In the first phase, our group researched and analyzed what are BSR and NochMall, by going through available documents and webpages. Second research phase consisted of us visiting the NochMall and exploring how the in-store experience, premises, product offering, and understanding the concept behind NochMall (Figure 1). Third phase of the process was to analyze a study on second hand shopping from 2020 with 6000 participants. The study highlighted how more and more consumers buy second hand. The study also showed that almost half of the surveyed people look for the second hand purchases from the flea markets. Sustainability was one of the main motivations for a second-hand shopping and majority of the respondents emphasized buying second-hand clothing due to the environmental and the pricing reasons. In the Fourth phase, we brainstormed and worked on the questions for the interviews for the key stakeholders of NochMall, such as: Marketing Manager, Operations Manager, Lead, customers, and employees. Once the questions were defined the interviews took place via phone, Teams and by interviewing the employees and customers in the store. The interview findings are emphasized in the Figure 2. What stood out was that NochMall should raise its awareness towards students and people in general and that the company is open for all sort of ideas (not limited to only one development idea). The fifth phase consisted on co-creating the personas based on the interviews and choosing two ideal “Personas”. Persona is an individual or composite-representation which helps to flesh out the user to whom the design is for. In our case we chose “Operations Manager Melanie Gille” and a customer “22 years old Jonas”. The Personas are described more in details in Figure 3. In the Sixth phase, we brainstormed and workshopped with all of our ideas, and then we ranked them as a group in order to find the elements to focus on. This was probably most difficult part as we had to find the consensus and agree on which items to focus on. The result was reached by voting and democracy. The selected focus areas were influencer marketing, Poetry Slam (Events), flea Markets and co-operation with the University by marketing in the campus (donation box concept-idea). Once we had selected the focus areas, we further developed those by taking into consideration the personas and the given problem regarding how to raise awareness within the students. We also tested the ideas for the other students, gained some valuable feedback, built on it and designed a prototype to demonstrate the University coop and donation box idea to increase the awareness within the students. (Figure 4). And for the final part, our team presented our ideas for NochMall's Lead and Operations Manager. After the presentations we had the opportunity to talk with both of them and further demonstrate our ideas, answer to their questions and receive their feedback. The methodology behind the study In the the study we used Service Design Methods. Service Design Network (2021) defines service design as an activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication, and material components of service to improve quality and interaction between service provider and customers. (Service Design Network, 2021). “The purpose of service design methodologies is to design according to the needs of customers or participants, so that the service is user-friendly, competitive and relevant to the customers.” (Service Design Network). HYVE's Service design process HYVE (2021) emphasizes how service design is about designing the ecosystem that deliver meaningful experience to the user across physical and digital touchpoints. They highlight how the approach should be integrative and human, and collaborative and agile to reach the maximum impact during the development process. It is also recommended on getting deep insights on customer experience, to identify innovation opportunities beyond traditional product offering, and to create holistic experiences across physical and digital touchpoints. The aim being the shift from product-oriented to service-oriented business model. They also describe the service design process starting from discover phase, following define, create & test, design and deliver phases (Figure 5). (HYVE, 2021.) The double diamond design process Design Council (2021) introduces the double diamond design process, which covers the same areas as described in the HYVE’s service design process: discover, define, develop, and deliver (Figure 6). The double diamond design process describes the four phases as follows: The discover phase emphasizes the start of the project which is a period of discovery, inspiration and insights gathering to identify user needs and developing initial ideas. The definition phase focuses on making sense of all the possibilities identified in the discover-phase. The goal of the second phase is to develop a brief that emphasize the fundamental design challenge to the organization. The development-phase builds up of the following elements: brainstorming, prototyping, multi-disciplinary working, visual management, development methods and testing. The fourth is a deliver phase which focus on final testing, approval, launch, targets, evaluation, and feedback. (Design Council, 2021.) Design Council provides tools for each phase, such as user journey mapping, user diaries, service safari and user shadowing for discover phase; persona, brainstorming and design brief for define phase; service blueprinting, experience prototyping and business model canvas for develop phase; and scenarios for deliver phase. Service design is used to analyze customer’s rising expectations. When improving current services and user experience, the development needs can be identified by using the Double Diamond Develop and focusing on Define parts. Personas and Service Blueprints ensure that the updated version of the product will serve the customers well and deliver added value. The solutions used in our project As a solution for the problem of raising the awareness especially within the Berlin area students, the selected four elements were presented to NochMall: Influencer Marketing: Instagram accounts of Helen Fares and Rosa Kocht Grun could be used to increase overall brand awareness, build credibility, SEO and ROI, drive purchase decisions and increase sales Hosting Events: Poetry Slam to attract more similar minded people with similar values to NochMall Flea Markets: Join Flea Market or Host Flea Market in order to sell more products and gaining the attention for the BSR NochMall New Donation Box design The case company was satisfied with the ideas and have promised to inform the further ideas and actions. It will remain to be seen whether the case company will implement some of these elements or not. The experience Overall, the studying trip to Berlin was a great opportunity and I feel thankful for being able to be part of it. I also got to meet fellow students and the studying coordinator for the very first time after more than 1,5 years of studying, as we are the “COVID19 year” students, and have been completing all the studies online due to the pandemic. It was great to meet, discuss, brainstorm, and exchange ideas, to work and laugh together live. I warmly recommend each and everyone of you to explore these kinds of opportunities and take those if offered. It is definitely worth it and I can promise that you will not regret. For the last part i included a picture of the group below. References: BSR Webpage and materials. Retrieved 25/11/2021. Design Council (2015). Design Methods for Developing Services. (e-publication). Retrieved 25/11/2021. https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/resources/guide/design-methods-developing-services HubSpot, (2021). Personas. (Website). Retrieved 25/11/2021. https://www.hubspot.com/make-my-persona Madplum Creative (2021). Enhancing Customer Experience Through Intentional Design. (Blog). Retrieved 25/11/2021. https://madplumcreative.com/enhancing-the-customer-experience-through-intentional-design/ Service Design Academy (2021): Service Blueprinting. (Online video). 22.05.2018. Retrieved 25/11/2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSCXHU2bK2U Service Design Tools (2021). (Webpage). Retrieved 25/11/2021. https://servicedesigntools.org/tools
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