by Emilia Aalto, Ardian Binaku, Amira Chokairy, Kirsten Dethlefs and Timila Leubecher

Internationalisation is one of the best aspects of Metropolia UAS and we were lucky to take part this autumn in the project “Smart City Logistics Concepts”  in cooperation with the University of Economics in Katowice, Poland and HTW Saar in Saarbrücken, Germany. Smart cities may be the urban future. This project aimed to analyse city logistics concepts from Finland, Poland and Germany, compare these and develop best practices that each country could use and develop further.

During the first part of the project, the Finnish, Polish and German teams worked in groups in their respective universities but shared information with others in webinars and a common drive. Later two international groups were created, the “Public Spaces group” and the “Transportation group”. Each group had at least one member of the country team.

Project week in Katowice

The main part of the project took place in Katowice 18.-23.11.2018 and consisted of interesting lectures, project workshops and study visits. The first evening was a get-together of the three teams with a Polish style dinner. On Tuesday we visited a transportation control centre in Gliwice which showed us how technology and surveillance systems help improve city transportation by creating efficiency in time, space and resources.

An interesting visit to the Silesian Museum taught us about the history of Katowice and the Silesia region and helped us to understand the perspective of the students we were working with.

The fourth day, Wednesday, was dedicated to project work. It was a challenge for all of us, as we had to complete the whole project in a short time before project presentations the next morning. No matter our differences in terms of ways of working in different countries and cultures, we created an amazing atmosphere and completed the project after a long day and night.

The fifth and final day, Thursday, was showtime! We had completed a joint presentation and were all nervous about how it would be perceived, as we are students, not experts. However, the project was a successful experiment. The presentation day ended with a diploma awarding ceremony. We were all happy to have this experience and spent the final evening together.

All in all, the project was a great experience for the whole team. We were all made to feel very welcome by the host university and it was great to experience a new city. Our organisers’ hospitality gave us an authentic Silesian experience. As a team, we may have had our differences, but we were able to push ourselves to our limits and put all the pieces of the puzzle in place. Internationalisation and education were the main goals of this project and we certainly succeeded in that!

For more information about the project, please contact Suvi Moll, Senior Lecturer, suvi.moll(at)metropolia.fi