Our Kick-off meeting was an awesome event, with such a great participation for a Friday night. More than 160 people had registered for the event. In the end, we were 130-140 people.
For those of you who could not attend our kick-off, you will soon be able to watch the speeches given by Hannu Seristö, Martin Sandelin and John Webster. You will also find the ASI presentation and the first social impact projects which were pitched during the event.
I liked Hannu Seristö speech (vice-president Aalto University). He confirmed that what we aim at doing with ASI is totally in line with Aalto University’s core values, i.e. tackle challenges and problems, having a responsibility to care and encourage, increase well-being and quality of life, focusing on real project cases which are interdisciplinary.
It was also inspiring to listen to Martin Sandelin, Ethics Officer at Nokia, who mentioned the importance of finding an organisation/company which matches your own values and believes, doing meaningful things which are impact-oriented but never to loose sight that sometimes by wanting to have a social impact, we can create unintended consequences. Everyone needs to keep a check on its actions and make sure that by trying to do good, we don’t make things worst. I also liked the real cases he showed on the social entrepreneurs Nokia has worked with all around the world. Message intended to the ASI social entrepreneurs crowd: You are not alone!
Last but not least, John Webster, Film Director, was also a very inspiring speaker. He shared his perspective on how to change the world. How to have an impact? What are the things we should keep in mind when trying to change the world? He talked about the imperialistic guide to change the world and emphasized on 2 important elements for success (never frighten the power in place and try to find a substitute to what you are trying to change).
The presentations ended at 20h00. The crowd then started interacting with the social impact projects. All the projects we selected were so different and interesting. It showed that there are many existing projects within Aalto Univeristy and that they cover a broad scope of social issues. All of the groups had great interactions, good new ideas and contacts for the future of their projects. Exactly what we were expecting. For those of you who would like to know more about the projects which were pitched, go check our Projects@ASI page which will give you short descriptions and contact details of the teams.
Animated conversations were still going on at Aalto Venture Garage at 21h30. The last participants left at 22h30!! It was very encouraging for a first event!
Now that the kick-off is behind, we need to reflect, brainstorm among the team, and fine tuned our activities for the forthcoming months. Our future events are still “work in progress”. We may change along the way but we are sure you won’t mind. We are testing things on you and see what formats bring most attendance, most action and most value to all of you.
We plan on following up on each project pitched in our ASI events. Around 17 May, we will have a closing event before the end of the Spring academic semester et report on what has happened for most of them.
Until then, don’t forget to register to our forthcoming events.
We wish you all a great Easter break!
ASI team
What is ASI video?
