Two teachers, Fred Boniphace and Lilian Mkonyi, from the universities of Dar es Salaam and NM-AIST participated in the course Human Technology Interaction in the Summer School of the University of Tampere in August 2018. Here is their travel report, which was originally published in Kristillinen Lääkärilehti (4, 2018, 14-15).

Travel report:

The month of August, 2018 is a memorable month in  our life, it was a period which marked our first experience in Finland. We went to Tampere for two weeks to  attend Summer School at the University of Tampere in  the course of Human Technology Interaction. The trip  was funded by the Finnish Christian Medical Society  (FCMS) who covered all the expenses associated with  the trip. During our stay we met various people with  different backgrounds as well as the opportunity to explore  some parts of the city. Among the people we met are  the members of FCMS with whom we had several meetings for discussing about their projects in Tanzania and other parts of the world as well as presenting our research ideas. 

General Experience 

Finnish people are very kind, their hospitality made us feel at home despite being the guests. For us it will  be difficult to forget their generosity that transformed  our mindset. We had the best accommodation in the  Omena Hotel at the city center thus enabling us to navigate  easily from one place to another and to the University  as well. 

Summer School Experience 

The Human Technology Interaction (HTI) was a very  interesting course, it exposed us to the knowledge of  designing technological products that meet user  needs. Lessons were delivered in a coordinated fashion, the instructor was well prepared and flexible, and lectures had a lot of recent real  world examples to enable easy understanding of the concepts. The class was very  interactive as the instructor allowed people  to share their experience and ideas on the  area of HTI. During classes we had group  discussions and assignments that enabled  us to practice what was taught and share  our thoughts by presenting to colleagues in  the class. Interaction among us and our  fellow students was nice and we managed to  make friends from parts of the world including  Finland.

Doing some practices at SimSpace

As a part of Summer School we had the opportunity of attending various social events organized such as Tour  bus, Ice breaker, Campus Tour and picnic & games gave  us opportunity to explore Finnish culture, taste the  foods, networking with new people and get to know  about other social events which were taking place  there. Indeed it was among the best experiences we  have ever come across. 

Meeting the FCMS members 

We had a chance to meet some members of the FCMS  who shared with us information about their projects. We also got a chance to present our research ideas and  got some inputs for improvement. During the meeting  we paid a visit to the hospital and got an overview of  various information systems used in the hospital as well  as visiting some of the classes in the health campus.  Also we had an opportunity to visit the library in which  one of FCMS members reserved us a time slot with the  librarian who exposed us to online literature  search. The library session was very helpful and equipped us with new literature search techniques. 

Appreciation 

First and foremost we would like to thank the Almighty  God for granting us the chance to get exposed to such a  wonderful opportunity which we couldn’t secure by  our own will. Sincerely we thanks the Finnish Christian  Medical Society who found it important to host and  having us in the Summer school. 

With these few words we would like to thank everyone  who contributed to the success of our trip to Finland,  we have nothing to offer in return but may God bless  you. 

Sincerely,

Fred Boniphace & Lilian Mkonyi