For the third Energy ECS consortium meeting the partners met in Finnish Lapland, hosted by the team of the Lapland University of Applied Sciences. The dark November weather was brightened by a light snow and very warm atmosphere during the sessions. We had a pleasure to have a keynote by Björn Fägersten, CEO at Politea, Fellow at Swedish Institute of International Affairs and a distinguished expert in the area of international relationships and geo-politics and innovation, outlining the challenges and opportunities of the current situation in Europe and the world. As consortium members also agreed, the rapidly changing situation has direct implications on the key topics of our joint initiatives. The opening keynote set the thought framework for the rest of the 2 days activities – making sure the activities are relevant and desired by the market.
“On behalf of the project coordinator office I have been very happy to see so many partners joining in person and representing their companies in the work streams of different Use Cases. Not even the most advanced technology can substitute the in-person communication. Even a short meeting face-to-face tends to drastically strengthen connection and bond between the partners, and that is exactly what we have seen now the second time we had a chance to get together in person. In terms of progress and results achieved by the mid-term milestone, the consortium has been performing very well. We have implemented some scope changes along the way, which we believe brings even better possibilities to succeed in the future. The progresses assessed by WP and UC leads is according to the plan and no unexpected risks are being faced right now. Known risks are being managed jointly. Reporting and deliverables are according to the planned schedule.” – comments Ksenia Avetisova, Strategy Development Lead at Tietoevry, leading the coordinator team.
Based on the feedback from the previous consortium meeting the program included joint sessions for the whole audience, in person and online, as well as separate parallel workstreams that devoted longer time to each Use Case. The program included networking breaks and evening activities, as well as dedicated time for the technical demos from partners and introduction of the ways of working and ongoing other research projects by the hosting university.
“It was really great to be able to host the Energy ECS project M18 consortium meeting at the Lapland University of Applied Sciences in Rovaniemi campus. The project partners were introduced to the operations of the Lapland UAS and they got introduced the environments of arctic conditions, which offer their own special features for the operation of electronics and systems. Some of the partners also got to visit the use case 3 and 4 test site in Pyhä, which is about 140 km northeast of the Rovaniemi campus. The face-to-face meeting between the project partners and the presentation of the Lapland UAS will hopefully lead to new collaborations.” – shares Jukka Leinonen, Project Manager at LUAS and the lead of the WP7 testing.
We thank all the participants and the whole consortium for an amazing work and are looking forward to well-deserved winter holiday break after submitting large number of deliverables and mid-term reporting.
