Who am I?
I
was
born
near
Helsinki,
Finland,
and
spent
my
varsity
years
at
Saint-Petersburg
Polytechnic
University.
Halfway
through
my
PhD
in
Physics,
I
decided
that
I
wasn’t
interested
in
acquiring
more
regalia
and
decided
to
travel
New
Zealand
–
the
furthest
point
away
on
the
map
I
could
think
of,
barring
Antarctica.
I
was
astonished
at
the
opportunities
this
country
offered
for
realising
one’s
personality.
It
is
for
this
reason
that
I
spent
recent
decades
challenging
this
place
with
the
most
unthinkable
career
paths.
To
my
surprise,
I
was
able
to
implement
even
the
bravest
of
my
ideas
–
everything seems possible here.
My
professional
life
is
made
of
several
closely
linked
and
mutually
interconnected
facets,
but,
above all, I specialise in taking complex projects from the “drawing board” to practical reality.
I
started
my
career
in
engineering
by
working
for
a
company
that
was
contracted
by
four
major
forces
(Defence,
Fire,
Police,
Ambulance).
There
I
was
involved
in
designing
and
deploying
entire
electrical systems of various specialised vehicles.
I
then
moved
to
work
for
a
much
smaller
company
that
specialised
in
repairing
vehicles
that
proved
to
be
“unrepairable”
to
prior
attempts.
It
is
there
that
it
occurred
to
me
that
in
many
cases
it
is
much
more
efficient
to
rebuild
the
affected
control
system
(vehicle
stability
control
system
for
example)
from
the
ground
up
rather
than
trying
to
fix
it.
I
worked
in
close
collaboration
with
major
European
brand
representatives
(most
notably
Mercedes)
and
their
scientific
advisors
or
chief
electrical and mechanical engineers. The nickname “car whisperer” originated at this time too.
Before
long,
this
brought
forth
my
other
professional
facet.
I
started
to
lecture
for
one
of
the
universities
in
New
Zealand
and
was
soon
a
senior
lecturer
responsible
for
engineering
computing,
mechatronics,
and
embedded
design
courses.
I’ve
developed
an
innovative
approach
to
teaching
and
assessment
that
eventually
became
a
national
standard.
I
was
eager
to
address
the
very
problem
because
of
which
I
left
academia
in
the
first
place.
The
problem
can
be
outlined
by
the
following
remark
so
often
given
to
the
students
today,
“Remember
and
repeat
or
you
will
fail
the
final
exam!
And
don’t
try
to
understand
anything,
for
you
won’t
anyway”.
The
developed
approach
allowed
me
to
rare
some
extraordinary
graduates
most
of
which
have
stayed
in
New
Zealand
and
I
am
certain
will
transform
this
country
from
a
primarily
agricultural
(low-cost,
high-volume)
type
of
export to a high-end engineering type of export (high-cost, low-volume).
Working
in
an
academic
environment
added
yet
another
professional
facet
–
an
international
research
collaboration
involving
mainly
Saint-Petersburg
Polytechnic
University
and
South
Westphalia
University
of
Applied
Sciences
(Fachhochschule
Südwestfalen).
The
two
main
streams
of
my
research
are
fundamental
physics
and
control
systems.
The
two
are
interlinked
through
rather
unexpected
intellectual
bridges
–
developing
in
one
area
almost
always
leads
to
salutary
results
in
the other.
I
become
more
and
more
convinced
that
an
engineer
will
not
move
any
enterprise
forward
by
employing
conventional
linear
thinking.
On
the
other
hand,
even
a
slight
deviation
from
this
“straight
line” always brings about the most remarkable results.
