Brief History of LC Helsinki

The following article is a presentation of LC Helsinki in the EESTEC Year Book 1999. Wrote by Iikka Väkiparta.

LC Helsinki, which currently comprises of about sixty members, has one of the longest histories of all the local commitees in the EESTEC organization. It goes back as far as 1985, when the student union at the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) invited students of technology from all over Europe to participate in the event commonly refered to as OOO, or "Otaniemi October Occasion", which took place at the university's campus, Otaniemi.

The event served as a good opportunity for Dutch and Finnish students that had been in touch from before to discuss in great detail their idea of establishing a European Electrical Engineering stu-dents' Cooperation Body. As a result of their work at the Otaniemi conference EESTEC was officially established in the Netherlands the following spring.

It was of course, rather natural that the Finnish delegation was quite at the heart of EESTEC activities in the first moments of its existence, however the Finnish National Commitee (as the local commitees were refered to back then) somewhat withered away for one simple reason that all the major EESTEC events took place exactly around the national holidays of Wappu (the 1st of May) and the Midsummer, which not a single more or less self-respecting Finnish student would even dream of missing.

Nevertheless, EESTEC archives compiled by then active Finnish members of the organization remained, just to be descovered almost ten years since the first days of EESTEC's existence by a very dedicated activist of the HUT's Electrical Engineers' guild Petro Airas (Putte), who ventured to take a combined interrail and research trip to the Central Europe, where the hot EESTEC stuff was happening, in such way leading to a complete reincarnation of an LC Helsinki.

A year later Mervi Honkanen (Memmu) was elected a vice chairman for the Felippo Tasselli's board, bringing the LC into full arena of international life. With great enthusiasm, she managed to stuff the LC with truly internationally minded people bringing a dream of organizing the first official LC Helsinki Workshop in conjunction with the guild's 75th anniversiry to reality in February 1996.

The first Workshop was also a start of a long productive relationship with another Finnish LC, the Local Commitee Tampere that was to continue into the days of the EESTEC Congress 1997 that was held in Helsinki. Organization of the congress was faithfully shared between the two LC, bringing the event into quite a success.

The week of congress was filled with extremely fruitful meetings, excursions, traditional Finnish sauna evenings and also traditional EESTEC kimble tournaments. Among the great fun very serious official guidelines for next year of EESTEC's life were developed by the participants. The organizers congratulated themselves on completing the Congress report with the speed of light to finalize it just a couple of hours before heading for the Software Workshop in Zürich.

In their trip to the Zürich Workshop, representatives of the LC Helsinki did not fail to demonstrate their great Finnish stamina and true EESTEC spirit by driving all the way from the Nordic latitudes to the Central Europe, which probably only an irrevocably insane person would consider doing. A group of eight completely wild Finns, nevertheless, got on a VW van in order to get themselves to the beautiful hills of Switzerland. The trip was truly enriching, as the gang took a ferry to Tallinn and drove all the way through the Baltic countries pulling over at a motel in Lithuania for a five-hour break and then continuing to Poland and Germany. Surprisingly enough, all eight ended up in Zürich absolutely on time after a two and a half - day drive.

Academic year of 1997-98 was internal relations development year for the LC. The first half of the year was seriously dedicated to attracting new people to the work carried by EESTEC, as the older activists were somewhat considering retirement in order to concentrate on their studies. However, the year was notable for LC Helsinki finally deciding to approach the rector of the Helsinki University of Technology to basically achieve two things, firstly to get the rector aquainted with the organization and secondly to convince him to sponsor the members in their travels. Result was a start of very successful and mutually beneficial relationship between LC Helsinki and the University rector.

During the following two years, LC Helsinki had (and still does so) a strong hold over one of the sits on the EESTEC board through such representatives as Harri Mansikkamäki and Iikka Väkiparta. (After them also Marina Leusko and Emmi Rautkylä have been represented on the board.)

LC's existence has been a total blast, however there were also downs, such as for instance the struggles in organizing the last Workshop, when nothing untill practically the very last moments seemed to work. But, thanks to the total dedication and persistence on behalf of the organizers, vital qualities in getting anything going, the Workshop on Measurement Technology held in Helsinki last year turned into a total success, which was though quite a test on survival in extreme Nordic conditions for a lot of the participants as the outside temperature in the Helsinki area dropped to and remained for the whole week at about 20 degrees Celsius below zero. No fatalities, however were observed.

As a group, LC Helsinki tries to promote the spirit of internationalism and friendships across borders through all the activities it organizes or participates in. It is a part of the biggest guild at the University, where about 2000 undergraduate electrical engineering students are listed as members. As a local group it is truly international, several foreign students studying at the department are involved in the EESTEC and hence in the happenings organized by the LC Helsinki, in such way bringing a special flavor of their culture and country into our life.