COLUMN
Olli Ernvall Editor-in-chief VTT Impulse
70 years of technology impact Technology is meaningless if we can’t benefit from it. This sounds harsh, but in the modern world the content of products and services is measured more and more in terms of its added value. I also maintain that technology without people, a technology lacking the user perspective, will remain theoretical and distant to most of us. How can we bring technology into people’s everyday lives? How can technology make a practical impression, and how do we define its added value? Is added value, for example, that people are able to choose food items that are beneficial to their health, that they can enjoy a better quality of life and live longer, that the elderly are able to remain in their own homes to a greater age, or that the onset of serious diseases such as Alzheimer’s or diabetes can be predicted and intervention begun earlier? Or is it the ability to mitigate the over-use of raw materials and make raw material use more efficient, or to reduce CO2 emissions and moderate climate change? Is added value measured by the improvements that can be made in the energy consumption of buildings, by the fact that water supplies can be safeguarded and water used more sparingly, or by waste being used to generate new products, such as energy and raw materials? Or, perhaps, that cars can be made safer or the need for them reduced, along with their emissions, or that traffic and logistics flow can be made more fluent by introducing controls and emission reductions? The list of new applications for technology is long and impressive, and continues to grow. The
VTT IMPULSE
examples mentioned above illustrate the technology results generated by VTT operations and VTT competence. VTT creates impact. VTT has been producing technology results for the whole of its 70 years of existence. In the post-war period VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland served a Finnish society that was rising to its feet through a programme of rebuilding. As Finnish society expanded in population and wealth our role began to shift towards developing technology and increasing national competitiveness. The foundation pillar nevertheless remained unchanged: solid, science-based expertise on which the customer can depend. Today, VTT is a multi-technological research centre producing high-quality technological solutions and innovation services for its customers. We contribute to the international competitiveness of our customers, thereby promoting sustainable development, employment and well-being in society. The result is born of VTT’s 3,100 specialists across a wide spectrum. I believe that the role of technology as a creator of well-being will only get stronger. For this we will require research based on knowledge and a steady eye on the challenges of the future. When developed in a goal-directed and responsible manner for the good of society and the benefit of customers, new technology will serve as our springboard into the future. The ones who will reap the harvest will be today’s customers and consumers, and the generations to come.
9