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Day
1: Arrival to Graz
When
the day of our departure dawned, we hopped onto a train to Helsinki
to catch our flight. Freezing winds from Siberia had blown to Central Europe and the Germans were struggling with the concept of winter. We
regrouped at the airport security check and hurried to our gate, only
to find out our flight had been delayed almost 3 hours. A little
discouraged we fell into our surprisingly comfortable airport seats
and waited for more information. Lufthansa kindly gave us vouchers
for snack food, which we exploited.
Eventually we were able to board
and fly to Munich for our connecting flight (which was also delayed,
yay!). At around 8 o’clock local time we arrived to Graz, Austria
and headed with a fast commuter train to our Airbnb apartment in the
city centre. Our first impression of the town in the dark was the amount
of Christmas lights everywhere. We were ready and excited to explore
this UNESCO’s City of Design since 2011.
Day
2: University visit, opening day of the EYA festival
In
the morning we headed out to visit one of the smaller campuses of FH
JOANNEUM, a university of applied sciences. The campus we visited
housed design departments which included areas like communication,
media, sound and interaction design.
One of the most impressive
moments for us was definitely hearing about the students’ thesis
works. In addition to the academical research and work, the students
are able to design their written thesis into personalised books. The
idea behind this is that the students are able to show the book as
part of their portfolio to an employer, which is then able to stand
out immediately from the masses of strictly university-themed
academic texts. The content still has to be academic text, just the
design and the layout are free to personalize. We were thrilled and
very inspired, which was a great mood to start the day with.
In the
afternoon we went on to register for the EYA, which was also our
first touch with the event itself. In short, EYA stands for European Youth Award, which is a European-wide contest to motivate young
people to produce digital solutions projects that will have an impact
on society. The winners are announced annually in a 3-day festival
consisting of workshops and other activities and finally, an award
ceremony.
The EYA opening ceremony was held in the City Hall of Graz. It
was a weird feeling to sit in this huge senate chamber full of young
people like us. We got to hear some opening talks and introductions
by for example the City Councillor of Graz, Anna Hopper. Afterwards
it was time for some Styrian food & beverages while meeting up
with the other team members and socialising with the festival
attendees. Our sauna hat team outfit to represent Finland was greatly
beloved!
Day
3: First full day of the EYA festival
On
the first day of EYA we had a morning session, which included an
opening speech, as well as an EYA campfire. In the campfire, chairs
had been put in circles in a room, and in each circle there was a
former EYA winner or some other professional that spoke about their
work experiences. We made six circle switches during one hour.
After
the campfire, we had to choose a workshop we wanted to attend in the
afternoon. We chose to attend the workshop number 2: “Successful
Concept Development and Beyond”.
Chris Bauer was our lecturer and
he talked about different concepts he had made during his career,
such as a big soccer ball for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. People could
walk inside the soccer ball and interact with screens inside it
during the world cup, which was very interesting. The big soccer ball
was also displayed in different cities the year after the World Cup.
Chris also showed some other concepts and we were able to read about
concepts from books he had with him.
One surprising and fun thing
during the event was that the EYA organisers handed out free bamboo
cups for all of the participants! The fact that all the participants
reduced plastic waste together was nice.
Day
4: The project exhibitions and the award gala
The second
day of EYA, exhibitions. Finally we got to present what we had worked
on for a month. Our precious posters meant for promoting and
evaluating our chosen projects. We worked with international teams -
there were students from all over Europe, so the whole EYA student
evaluating process taught us a lot about other cultures and ways of
working (some things good and some not so much).
We got to practice
pitching in a not too serious environment, which was nice. After the
exhibition we had some time to freshen up before the end gala. The
gala was held inside a huge rock in the middle of the city, which
sounds creepy, but was actually very pretty.
The winners of EYA were announced and all projects got a prize (a HUGE “diamond” -
fancy). The winner project was Food+x, a blockchain powered platform
built onto existing businesses to reduce food waste.
Some student evaluating groups also got a small prize for
quality work from a jury. Sadly we didn’t, but the appreciation
from the winner project teams was more than enough. Overall we had a
great time at the gala - there were snacks, good music and even a
beatbox performance! Would definitely love to attend again.
Day
5: The last day of EYA and flying back home
After
the long night of partying and networking we woke up to attend the
feedback session for the whole event. With that it was a wrap! Our
minds full of reflective thoughts, we packed our bags and headed back
to the airport, said goodbye to the beautiful city. What a great
opportunity it was to see and experience everything!
To our delight,
the flights were not delayed and we were able to stay in our travel
schedule. Arriving back to Finland just before midnight, we jumped
straight into beds to sleep all the fatigue off.
What a trip! We were
left feeling Christmas spirit and inspiration. Maybe some of us might
return here for our exchange studies in the future.
Cheers!
Text & photos by Noora, Anna, Pauliina & Annika 2018
Edits by CF
