BIC semifinals and Space Tourism Forum

This week was very exciting for me, as we had two big events coming up. The BIC semifinals of my class and the very first Space Tourism Forum Porvoo.

The BIC semifinals were an event, as mentioned in earlier posts, that we have been working towards for a long time. Starting by developing three business ideas, presenting them in the Business Idea Fair and finally perfecting one of the ideas and pitching it to our class.

So, on Monday, 23rd of November, all the students of TEMPO20 (Tourism and Events Management class of 2020) gathered in the lobby of Porvoo campus and with the assistance of three of our teachers we presented our ideas to the class.

One very interesting idea was presented by the “HH Porvoo Events Team” presented by Essi Mahlakaarto and Emilia Sirjonen on stage, as well as Emmi Mäkinen and Julia Sievälä. Their idea is a Light Carnival in Porvoo's city center to bring light in the dark Finnish month of November. Their first event would happen in November of 2021 and could become an annual celebration people could look forward to.

Another idea containing an event was planned Laura Lehmusto and her team, including Alisa Jokinen, Jared Gregory and Pihla Yliverronen. Their event Lansinki is an e-sport expo that is planned to be happening twice a year in the Helsinki area.

In my group there are besides me: Salli Halonen, Reel Abdeldayem and Roberts Bēliņš and together we are the HALB team. Our idea is called STIPP and it´s an app for Haaga-Helia students, where they can exchange tips and tricks about diverse yet valuable experiences and knowledge on study life in Haaga-Helia. Since students, especially freshers and international students, struggle with fitting into the active study life, it is necessary to provide these people with help to make them feel welcome and safe. 

Thanks to the voting of our class, my group and one other will represent TEMPO20 in the finals in front of the other first semester students next Friday.

The second big event that happened this week was the first Space Tourism Forum Porvoo, organized by third semester events management students with my roommate Kristina Laurinčiukaitė and Rauna Graulus as the project managers. Due to the ongoing covid-situation the event had to take place online.

After a short welcome speech, the first keynote speaker Annette Toivonen started with an introduction to space tourism as a new sector of aviation. Annette Toivonen is a new lecturer at Haaga-Helia Porvoo campus, she just published her book Sustainable Space Tourism, and she is the first PhD candidate in the field of space tourism at the University of Lapland. In her speech she talked about the definition of space tourism (“Space tourism is the temporary movement of people for non-military reasons beyond the Earth´s atmosphere” Duval & Hall 2015), how fast the industry is growing and about a responsible space tourism module at Porvoo campus taught by her and Darren Trofimczuk.

The second keynote speaker was Mikko Dufva, Sitra’s (Finnish Innovation Fund) leading foresight specialist, who talked about the space economy and megatrends. We learnt that most of the finances in the space economy come from the satellite industry and only a very small percentage from commercial human spaceflights, as well as Finland´s vision in the space industry and how Covid-19 can interfere with megatrends. For me the most interesting part was, to hear how space economy can help with the ongoing climate change, but also how satellites create a pollution problem in space.

Further on the event continued with Networking sessions, divided in rooms with the topics of UK space projects, space tourism research and responsible space tourism course, as well as a panel discussion about ethical and sustainable space technologies for space exploration, led by Darren Trofimczuk with Annette Toivonen, Pekka Janhunen (Research Manager at Finnish Meteorological Institute's Space and Earth Observation Centre) and Maija Lönnqvist (Secretary of the Finnish Space Committee).

As a little extra, the event also included two polls for the audience: “Would you be willing to become a space tourist?”, which about 75% answered with “yes” and only about 25% with “no” and “How much would you be willing to pay for a trip to space (in Euros)?”, where with around 50% “1-5 thousand” the most common answer was.

Overall, the Space Tourism Forum was a very well-organized event, and I would like to say thank you to everyone who organized and took part in this event.

-Lotte

“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.” – Unknown

PS: Hei Finns! We need your help!

As Christmas is finally getting closer, we started to plan the Christmas blog post for #allthewayupnorth. It would be great if you could help us and fill in this survey and forward it to your family and friends! Kiitos! Click here for the survey!