#78 - Circular Growth and Regenerative Living

Before we jump in.

You've been working across forest management, urban planning, and now you're leading circular growth and business renewal at VTT.

Very broad.

And we'll touch a lot of these topics in our conversation today.

But before that, who is Duja Bakkanen beyond the titles, beyond the projects?

Thanks for asking.

I'm having an interesting background compared to a lot of the researchers in VTT, Technical Research Center of Finland.

I've been working with various types of fields, as you mentioned, forest management and GIS and remote sensing based on that.

Not only in Finland, where I'm from, but also in the United States and in Nepal.

And also with GIS tools, geographic information system tools, regarding urban planning and impact making, impact planning in the urban environment.

My background is actually in geography and it's always in my heart.

Once I see a map, I really love to see it.

Interesting.

Let's stay there for a moment.

Your career bridges, as you said, geography, data, sustainability.

What drew you to this intersection and to the topic you're focusing on now, circularity in the built environment, in the urban field? And how has your career influenced how you approach the topic?

It's an interesting question.

I think that it bases on the vision behind how do I make decisions in life.

I hardly ever say no.

If there is an interesting question that makes the world a better place, I usually say yes.

And hence, kind of the path took me first to another place and then to the second.

And while I had the opportunity to jump in VTT's board with VTT after working, for example, in Ministry of the Environment on interoperability of data in built environment there.

So it was a logistic or logical approach.

It was a logical change from ministry to VTT to work with technology innovation and somehow making the change somewhere in working with researchers where the knowledge is made originally and how that is converted into tangible actions.