Many returnees at the University's Alumni Day

On Friday, October 11, Luleå University of Technology opened its doors to its alumni. The programme included a tour of the campus in Luleå, a dinner and the inauguration of the portrait wall for previous recipients of the Alumni of the Year award.

A lot has happened since the first students started at what was then called Luleå University of Technology. Many new programmes and research subjects have been added and the physical environment has changed. For most alumni, STUK – the venue for the dinner – was new. In their time, the parties were organised in what today houses the Centrumrestaurangen.

The former students were guided around the Luleå campus by student ambassadors, which are students who, in parallel with their studies, represent the university at various fairs and other events. At one of the visitor stations, communicator Henrik Örtenvik told about the future campus. Among other things, two new university buildings for laboratories, offices and teaching will be built where the D-house and F-house are today, and a green area is planned where the E-house stands.

“This is the largest university development project currently undertaken in Sweden,” said Henrik Örtenvik.

The alumni also got to visit the library, which was renovated in 2019 – 2020, StiL's gym, the robotics lab, Service Point, the so-called silent room, which is an eco-free lab for conducting tests in technical acoustics, and the 3D map in the C-house showing the university campus on Porsön.

Inauguration of the Wall of Fame

After the tour, everyone gathered in STUK. Vice-Chancellor Birgitta Bergvall-Kåreborn welcomed the alumni back to the university and inaugurated the so called Wall of Fame – a portrait wall with previous years' recipients of the Alumnus of the Year award. Several previous award winners were present and talked about what the award and the university have meant to them.

Then followed a mingle with refreshments, during which the alumni got to see the Wall of Fame.

Anna Öhrwall-Rönnbäck, Professor of Product Innovation, led a panel discussion with both researchers and alumni on the panel about the university's role in the ongoing green transition in Norrbotten and Västerbotten.

Five researchers gave short presentations on the research going on at the university. Joel Andersson, Associate Senior Lecturer in Ore Geology, talked about the age determination of copper and cobalt in the Viscaria deposit in Kiruna and the importance of the project in securing Europe's access to copper and cobalt, which are important metals in the green transition.

Jessica Körning-Ljungberg, Professor of Psychology, talked about how attention and memory are affected by different activities. The main message was that the brain is malleable. Among other things, the alumni learned that multilingualism is good for memory and that strategy games can make young people better at quickly shifting focus between different tasks.

Feeding your brain

“There is a lot of talk about what we feed our bodies with. But we should talk more about what we feed our brains with,” said Jessica Körning-Ljungberg.

Mats Westerberg, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, had a similar approach to his topic on how to develop entrepreneurial skills. Creativity and openness are important qualities for an entrepreneur, he said, and encouraged the alumni to read fiction, sfor example year's Nobel laureates.

Kristina Söderholm, Professor of History, talked about how new archaeological discoveries show that people living in northern Fennoscandinavia mastered advanced steel production, which was previously thought to have been introduced in the Nordic region first in the 17th century, already 2000 years ago.

Finally, Björn Lindqvist, Assistant Professor of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, talked about how autonomous robots can be used to increase safety in the mining industry.

The dinner consisted of a Mediterranean buffet and for dessert pannacotta with forest berries. During the dinner, a band of students from the university provided entertainment. The Vice-Chancellor presented awards to this year's alumni, actor Christopher Wagelin, known for his role as Mattis in the new film adaptation of Ronja Rövardotter, and astronaut Katherine Bennel-Pegg, who sent a recorded greeting from Australia.

After dinner, the mingling continued.

Anders Eriksson, CEO of Markbygden net, who graduated in industrial economics in 2003, was very pleased with the day:

“Since I graduated, I have kept in touch with the university. I have many good memories from here. It is important to be proud of Luleå University of Technology. I have never felt any inferiority complex towards the larger and older universities. We are quite as good as the others. Luleå University of Technology has a nice social environment. It is so down to earth.”

In total, about 150 alumni participated during the day.

“We are very happy that so many alumni from all over the country visited the university. It was really nice to meet them and hear their stories about their time at the university and what they are doing now”, says Åsa Karlström who was the main organiser of Alumni & friends.

• See more pictures from Alumni Day External link, opens in new window.
• Register in our alumni database and you will be invited to other activities External link, opens in new window.
• Read more about the construction plans and the future campus in Luleå
• Read more about the Alumni of the Year
• Read more about ancient steel making in Fennoscandia
• Read more about autonomous robots