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Olli Rauramo, Susanna Nevalainen and Krista Naumanen from Aalto University have been selected to Huawei’s international Seeds for the Future programme for higher education institutions together with seven other students representing five different universities in Finland. 

When the students were selected, the motivation for the field and the programme demonstrated by the applicants in their applications was emphasised in addition to CVs, knowledge of languages and references.

‘What fascinated me was that this is more than a traditional visit to a company – we will also get to learn about a broader range of trends in technology, and China and its culture will be introduced to us by locals,’ says Krista Naumanen happily.

The human comes first

The Finnish students will fly to China at the beginning of October and will spend the first week familiarising themselves with the Chinese language and culture in the capital Beijing. The group will spend the second week at Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen, learning about the most recent innovations in communication technology under the guidance of the company’s ICT experts. Anne Berner, Minister of Transport and Communications, gave a speech when the student selections were announced and emphasised the importance of innovations for Finland’s and the EU’s future in both the public and private sectors.

‘5G technology brings benefits for them both, for example, in the field of the Internet-of-Things, e-learning, automation in mobility and e-healthcare,’ she stresses.

ICT is an increasingly integral part of daily life, business and the entire society. The students emphasise that the human is still the priority in technological development.

‘I study the interaction between humans and computers, and to us improving usability is a really big thing. In other words, although systems are becoming more and more complex, they are still easier to use. The less the user needs to know about the equipment, the better,’ Susanna Nevalainen summarises.

‘Services are developed for people and that is another reason why it is great to be able to travel there and learn to understand different people,’ says Olli Rauramo.

The Seeds for the Future student programme was launched in 2008. More than 2,000 students across the world have already participated in the programme and, in the past six years, hundreds of students from as many as 27 countries have been admitted to the programme from Europe alone. In 2016, 80 different student groups from more than 70 countries are expected to participate in the programme. Finland participates in the programme for the first time this year.