RESAO Inauguration Speech
"You are the brightest minds of the 21st century" that is what we have been told the first days we came to the Land of Ice and Fire. This is quite an ambitious statement, but for the past year we have all tried our best to live to it. At many moments it was hard, but commitment to our ideals and more importantly our collaboration, cooperation and friendship, gave us strength to overcome all obstacles. In the end "We’re simply the RES!".
We sung those words and won the song competition at the University of Akureyri Sprelmot. It was an astonishing success for first-timers. It proved what remarkable ideas stand behind the RES School - international cooperation, united by mission to deal with the environmental and now economical hurdles of today’s world. The RES Graduate program 2008/2009 is a perfect example of the culmination of these ideals. We experienced the best teachers and scientist from all over the world; we developed our thesis projects in Akureyri, Reykjavik, Colorado, Connecticut, Kosice, Perugia, and Julich. Truly an eye opening experience! We can and we will carry the success of this beyond RES!
Our worldwide green energy revolution starts right now! Previous generations had their revolutions (industrial revolution, culture revolution in the 60’s, Internet revolution in the 90’s). We need to preach the gospel of renewable energy and sustainable development! The task is not an easy one. The reality is grim. Only 60% of people acknowledge the fact of global warming and out of that only 50% admits its anthropogenic cause[1][2].
The global economic crisis can be the motivation for change, a bucket of cold water, sobering after being high on the cheap energy based on fossil fuels. There are unfortunate casualties; this beautiful island is the best example of that. But the forest needs to burn down for a new and stronger one to grow back. Every one of us has the knowledge to plant the seed. We can be the leaders in the green energy revolution; we can spread awareness and participate in grassroots movements. The new president of the US gave us a vision of hope for the future in his inauguration speech. He said: "We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories."... YES WE CAN!
Our adventure with RES cannot stop now. We have gained the set of tools but tools alone are not enough. We can only build on this together. The RES Alumni Organisation is a forum for us to strengthen our connections with each other, renewable energy focused industry and RES colleagues. Our goal as RES Alumni is to stay in touch with job and internship offers from renewable energy and sustainable development sector. We want to help to promote the RES School and ideas of sustainable and environment aware living. The international character of the school will allow us to make reunions all over the world. We planned the first in Kraków 1-7 June 2009.
We all appreciate the fact that all our scholarships were funded by the Icelandic companies and government. We will do our best to fulfill the expectations you have with us. Now it’s our time to give back!
"Life during RES studies is not a piece of cake."
"(…) it’s an intensive program that requires also a lot of dedication and hard work to succeed"
"(…) we learned to successfully work in stressful conditions, under time pressure and to focus on the tasks"
"(…) we grasped the big picture of energy issues"
"(…) learned how the importance of our actions today will impact future generations: how much should be changed"
"(…) we need to solve our present and future energy problems in a sustainable way"
"RES is not only a school but an opportunity"
"(…) opportunity to get in contact not only with a lot of important researchers and professors but as well to leading companies and possible future business partners"
"(…) it is a great pleasure to discover the overwhelming volcanic landscapes of Iceland and to make new friendships"
"We will for sure never forget those memorable moments in Iceland."
Tomasz Miklis
student quotes taken from www.res.is website
