The Millennium Youth Camp (MY Camp) is an endeavor that provides students from all over the world the opportunity to network with each other and with Finnish business life and top scientists. The Camp is organized by Technology Academy Finland, the national LUMA centre and the Finnish Ministry of Education, among others. Vaisala was one of the Millennium Youth Camp’s corporate partners 2010 – 2012, which means that we participated in the planning of the Camp and organize a one-day company visit annually.
Following the success of previous years’ Millennium Youth Camps (MY Camp), this international science camp was organized again last summer for high school students from around the world keen on natural sciences and technology. For the third year running, Vaisala was one of the corporate partners lending the expertise of some of our professionals for the benefit of the students.
Six MY Camp participants, from Bangladesh, Finland, Germany, India, Romania and Slovenia, had an opportunity to spend a day at Vaisala’s Head Office learning about the company and its role in environmental measurement and climate change research.
The campers got to tour the factory, marveling at the weather radar, learning about sensor production at the cleanroom and launching a radiosonde. The day also included a presentation by CEO Kjell Forsén and talks by Vaisala’s experts on, among other things, new improvements in weather radar technology.
Unique Learning Opportunity
MY Camp is organized to increase interest in natural sciences and technology, and to raise awareness of the study and employment opportunities in Finland. Getting to participate is a unique opportunity. Among the almost 1,600 applicants only 30 were selected. The campers’ travel costs and the action-packed week in Finland are fully covered. With participants from 22 countries, the camp is also a great chance to make friends and future career contacts worldwide.
The camp’s main organizers are Technology Academy Finland and the Finnish Science Education Centre LUMA.
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The Millennium Technology Prize
Linus Torvalds, the person behind Linux, and Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, a Japanese physician and stem cell researcher, are the joint winners of 2012 Millennium Technology Prize. Prior to the prize awarding day, on June 12, Mr. Torvalds and other esteemed technology professionals had time to visit Vaisala Finland. The visit was part of the Millennium Technology Week program organized by Technology Academy Finland.
During the visit, Linus Torvalds and Johan Hyllner, SCO of Cellectis, got a real hands-on experience how Vaisala technology works when they each were asked to launch a radiosonde. The sky was clear and winds favorable so both sondes disappeared quickly into the upper air. The weather radar hall inspired an active discussion as Heikki Pohjola, Application Manager at Vaisala, explained how the world’s most advanced radar works and showed real time precipitation data from the Kerava radar. Heikki was, of course, also proud to point out that Vaisala’s weather radar WRM200 is run on Linux.