AI comes to classroom in Konnevesi

 

Today AIWARE project visited Konnevesi high school. The aim of this project is to help students, teachers and schools to adapt the imminent future of AI coming to our classrooms all over the world.

Within the next 4 years, this project is not only creating a teachers' driving licence of AI for classrooms but also lists the competences we need to know to teach AI and with AI in our classrooms. In our first meeting, we met half a year ago in Bottrop.

AIWARE project has been visiting Jyväskylä this time so this gave us also the great opportunity to start piloting some of our AI learning scenarios in real classrooms.

Current head teacher of Konnevesi High School, Mari Jämsen was kind enough to invite us to visit the always proactive 'School of 2030'.

We had a limited consortium from Finland, Germany and Lithuania represented.

Konnevesi is situated about 1h drive from Jyväskylä and have collaborated with JYU on various technology enhanced learning projects in the past like IMAILE and LEA.

Our pilot in the classroom today was in a Geography lesson. The topic was cities and countryside. Our aim was to use machine learning for them to use image recognition to teach their own machines to identify 'country/city'. One task was to show the laptop's webcam the image from the window and see if they recognised country in this case...  The kids are extremely fast to learn and got 90-96% correct! 

We also talked a little on AI Ethics - why would AI get it wrong? What kind of bias they might get based on the training data...?

This was a nice little pilot - we will be doing much more of these in the coming months. If you want us to show up to your classroom in Finland, Germany, Greece or Lithuania - send me a message! 

The wonders of Gdansk

 Today we are having a little Christmas party in Gdansk.

For years, it has been a tradition that we have a Chistmas party in a close-by country with a Christmas market... 2 years ago we were in Riga, 4 years ago we were in Tallinn etc.

 Because of structural changes in the Uni, it became clear that we can't do this by-annual traditional trip again this year...

  So... we decided with some colleagues to book a trip on our own, not to be tied to the faculty's Christmas party plan.

 And in 2018...

 If you are booking holidays from Finland...

 The definitely cheapest option seems to be: Gdansk. And by cheap, I mean that the flights were 26€/return from Turku and amazing appartment for 30€/person on top of that. So if it costs you 56€/person for 3 days... I guess that can be okay... To spend with your best crew <3.

 We have now been here 24h, and to be honest...

 I am at awe...

 The scenery is amazing.

 Fantastic medieval architechture

 Picturesk scenery

 Old European streets

 Beautiful buildings...

 (never mind the horizon)

 It has been crispy -8C

 But all the service...

 ...The shopping...

 ...the company...

 ...Well you can tell from their faces, can't you...

 ...That it's really competing with Bruxelles, Amsterdam, Berlin... Or any other city among Europe for this season.

 And I would definitely come here again.

 ...And this is really summing it up...

 I have seen many cities in my life..

 ..and even more in Europe...

 ...but still in these perspectives...

 ...Gdansk ranks up really awesome:)

 The decor...

 ...The cafes...

 ..the atmosphere...

 ... So yes. Gdansk. Yes.

Dong Shan Electronic Commerce Park

Suzhoussa ollessamme 9. advanced Forum on Sino-American E-commerce -konferenssiin kuului vierailu Dong Shan Electronic Commerce -puistoon.

Dongshan on verkkokauppa, joka myy alueen maataloustuotteita.

Teetä, marjoja, hedelmiä ja rapuja...

Donghsanilla on automatisoidut rapujen kasvattelualtaat, joissa sensorit mittaavat altaiden lämpötiloja jne.

Eli tämä e-commerce park hyödyntää Internet of Things -teknologiaa, ei pelkästään myy tuotteita netissä...

Alueella oli myös "start-up hautomo" eli Kiinan hallitus tarjoaa työtiloja ja -välineitä niille farmereille alueelta, jotka haluu myydä tuotteitaan esim. Taobaon alla omassa verkkokaupasaan.

Kolleegani Eetu totesikin, että suomalaisissa yrityksissä on se ongelma et ne ajattelee e-commercen olevan sitä, et luodaan oma verkkokauppa. Sit ihmetellään, että miksei tää toimi, kun kukaan ei käy siellä verkkokaupassa...

Kun tuotteet ja palvelut pitäisi panna sinne, missä asiakkaat ovat eli isompiin verkkokauppoihin, joissa on näkyvyyttä. Mene sinne, missä asiakkaasi ovat...oli se sit Facebookissa, WeChatissä tai vauvaforumeilla... pyörää ei tarvitse keksiä uudestaan, täytyy vaan miettiä, miten sitä pyörää innovatiivisesti käytetään.

Tämä oli hyvä vierailu - nähdä, missä Kiinassa mennään. Herätti ajatuksia meidän tutkimukselle. Hyvä käydä välillä kentällä katsomassa, mitä "oikeassa maailmassa" tapahtuu...

/In the 9. advanced Forum on Sino-American E-commerce conference, A visit to A local business was planned For day 2. The target was "Dongshan electronic commerce park". This place sells aggricultural products of the region online: apples, berries, Tea and even crabs. Crabs are actually raised in automatic ponds using internet of things technology to monitor the water quality and temperature. Pretty impressive really. What was even more impressive was the start up accellerator Set up there by the Chinese government to allow local farmers to come in and use their space to sell the products online under taobao... the working space and computers were provided... 

This raised Many thoughts to us, Finns. In Finland, Many companies think that establishing their own webshop is the key to e-commerce and then they wonder Why they don't get customers. Go where your customers are.. Whether It is wechat or Facebook... thats the way.

It is good to visit companies and the "real world" every once in a while. I feel this visit gave me Lots of thoughts For my research.