Emilia Olkanen

Technology and Social Sciences. Sounds quickly like quite a weird combination. However, experience from two universities has brought me perspective on both different subjects and cultures - in my starting year only 20 % of Electrical Engineering freshmen were women and in International Relations the scales turned to the opposite direction - in favor of women.  Splitting in two directions has not caused me much harm until now, moreover I have become a strong supporter of interdisciplinary studies. Both places have their pros - studies at Tampere University of Technology (TUT) are more pragmatic and solution-based whereas Tampere University (UTA) is more science oriented in terms of methods. It is claimed as well that generalists are needed in the future to summarize the ever increasing fracturization of subject matters.

Politics, taking care of common issues, is a very interdisciplinary and holistic field as well. One should know at least everything of everything. First and foremost there will be challenges. Nonetheless, masochism has not been the only reason for me to enter politics, I could say I experienced some kind of political awakening a few years ago. The reason was in my closest circle where people started falling through the so called safety nets of our society. My worst health care experiences are from my city of birth, Porvoo, but the things do not seem to be much better anywhere else in Finland. Many years my hobbies included societal whining but last spring I came to the conclusion that I could try something else instead - acting.

As probably many other Finns, I had not experienced a real climate awakening before last year. Formerly I had mostly concentrated on recycling waste but after reading energy reports related to my TUT studies their messages started working their way through. Something really had to be done. At TUT student union I also registered some of the first climate refugees from Bangladesh - a country threatened to be under water after some decades. There has been a long period of broadcasting eternal summer for the “climate change winner” Finland in the Finnish media but bit by bit we have started to wake up and listen to the international science community. The decreasing environmental diversity and perishing species start to be a part of a global week. No country lives on its own sphere either - global ecocatastrophes do not recognize any frontiers.

Accordingly, choosing the Greens as my party was very natural. Party program seemed good, and I could say in general that I stand behind everything in it. I do not like the traditional division into idealists and realists - usually people who call themselves realists argument all their point-of-views with the concept of tradition and claim everything new is idealistic daydreaming. I see idealism as creation of new visions and options. In this matter the Greens have succeeded well. Also the thought that the Greens are not in the left or in the right but ahead describes the party well. Transparency of decision making is a very important Green feature as well. The closed system supported by Prime Minister Vanhanen does not really increase transparency or public interest in policy making.

Openness fits well with my personality, sometimes even that well that it starts to be harmful for my own interests. However, I believe that if one does not ever give away anything he or she does not necessarily gain anything either. I am good at sparring, going, doing and I sometimes become excited about maybe even too many things at the same time. I have been actively involved in guild and other organization activities during my whole study time, and I have worked in very different posts. I have collected experience of international affairs inside a student union, electrical design, student councelling, working as a research interviewer and many other things. International organization activities have been most interesting - I have been active in many of them just to mention AIESEC and INTO organization at TUT which I was founding among other people in the year 2007.

To whine or to act - I chose to act. Staying with the choice sometimes proves to be difficult and in a way politics is only whining in a bigger forum. Until now the new territorial conquest seems very interesting. Party politics seem to attract active people interested in the common good who want to make the world a better place to live in. It is comfortable to go with the flow but by creating waves one can achieve more. There is also quite a lot of power in the municipalities and the decisions concern issues closest to us which means municipal elections should actually be the most interesting elections for citizens. Finnish municipalities have more power in comparison with the state when studying the political systems in different countries. Voting is one way to contribute. The Greens support neighbouring democracy which means increasing the decision power of different city parts. Nowadays internet and blogs offer more power tools for everyone.

In any case, I finish my activation speech by now and go to sleep. See you around, most probably somewhere in Tampere.