Finland Section Student and Gold Activities

Despite the small size of the group we were able to successfully plan and arrange multiple diverse events: In the Spring of 2010 in May two professors gave lectures on cognitive networks and spectrum sharing at the IEEE GOLD Professional Telecommunication Lectures. During the Fall of 2010 IEEE GOLD set a goal to gain more visibility which was achieved by attending Vulcanalia, a day for guilds and associations at the University of Oulu. The team reserved a central location and attracted the attention of people with candy, various promotional pamphlets about IEEE and running promotional videos on a 52” wide screen. Furthermore we witnessed the slight re-engineering of an age old saying ”curiosity killed the cat” to ”curiosity destroyed the helicopter” during the IEEE day as the attention of the University of Oulu was mainly directed to us for 4 hours of that day. We organized a STEP event in November, which was geared on developing professional presenting skills especially with regard to the different aspects of delivering a presentation and gaining more experience by practicing. Many representatives of the industry, researchers and students were present. We also plan to make the city of Oulu an IEEE city, by getting involved in arranging events on a municipal scale, like our following event, which will be covered by the local newspapers and possibly news. Our events have certainly been successful and have aroused a lot of interest even in the IEEE community both regionally and globally by making a few of the headlines. It doesn’t stop here IEEE GOLD Finland also expanded its tentacles to Tampere by establishing a new section there, which is alive and well. IEEE has provided us with an instrument to implicate change, arouse awareness and connect with the needs of the local professional environment. We are very glad about our success, and believe in sharing, because as the old adage goes it is caring. We hope that many teams around the globe but especially in region 8 could benefit from our experience. We want to remind everyone that innovation does not just happen, it requires the minds that are free from discussing others, the minds that are not limited to only discuss events, and the minds that dare to dream. We encourage all the teams to be bold and build castles in the air, and not to forget to put proper foundations under them, we innovate to create and not to eliminate. In the future we plan to increase our numbers. We will achieve this by hosting events that are very relevant in the local area. We will take measures to facilitate the membership application process as well as participation and we will further increase cooperation with the local industry. All in all, this group though fairly small has fulfilled the IEEE Spartan dream of beating the odds and making a significant impact despite their size. Their award is sure to encourage many other groups that have enthusiastic people who are willing to surf the waves of innovational change no matter how rough they may seem.