![\"Kieto](\"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/scm-and-sr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2023\/11\/kieto-withoutbackground-1024x924.png\")
<\/figure>Kieto Mahaniah <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recent Graduate from the Masters program in Humanitarian Logistics from Hanken School of Economics <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHello Master!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s funny. It\u2019s cute. It\u2019s repeated. \u201cHello Master\u201d. With a\nsmile and a wink, I respond in kind. I raise my glass along with the excited\nfaces surrounding me. To my left is a friend who is going on to work in\nresearch to develop accounting principles. Across the circle is another going\noff to work in sustainable consulting. Still yet to their right is another\nstarting their own company (in what, nobody knows). To their right is another\nworking in sustainable management. As I look around, and realize with a sigh,\nthat we are missing some faces. Some already graduated a few months ago,\nworking in HR or project management. One started working internationally and\ncouldn\u2019t make it to the celebration. Others are just now wrapping up their theses.\nBut me? I\u2019m a Master. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAre you kidding me? I\u2019ll never go to grad school!\u201d. Echoes\nfrom my memories in 2020. Swinging in a hammock high above the trees in the\nWhite Mountains, my friends murmur their consensus. Four years of a bachelor\u2019s\nprogram was more than enough. \u201cWell, I\u2019m thinking about a PhD\u201d comes a voice\nfrom below me. We\u2019ve bunked our hammocks to all share a circle. \u201cYou\u2019 crazy\u201d I\nsay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHave you heard of Humanitarian Logistics?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n I was ready to move on. No more school. No more classes. I\nwanted to make a difference in the world. The only question was, \u201chow?\u201d. I had\na degree in engineering and one in operations management, and still didn\u2019t know\nwhat I wanted to do with myself. Do I volunteer for a year? Take a year off and\nfigure it out? Maybe start my own company? Or an entry level role somewhere\nhere in the northeastern US? Nothing felt right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sharing these reflections weeks later with one of my\nprofessors, she gave me a long hard look, and turned her screen to face me\nacross her desk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHave you heard of Humanitarian Logistics?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hadn\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTake a look at a few of these programs, they might be of\ninterest to you\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I looked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was cool. It was helping. It was making a difference. I\nfound organizations bringing food to people in need. I found people figuring\nout new ways to deliver vaccines to hard-to-reach areas. I found researchers\nfiguring out better ways of planning roads and cities to be more resilient. And\nI found international positions that would allow me to travel, see new places,\nmeet new people, and have an impact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I liked the challenge, meeting people, networking in an unfamiliar but impactful field. <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n And I found job expectations that I had nowhere near the\nexpertise to fulfill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I did find programs that would train me, teach me, to\nhave the background necessary to do all those things I had found. Specifically,\nI found this Masters in Humanitarian Logistics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe will not be handing you your degree on a silver platter\u201d\nthe face on the screen in front of me says. \u201cIf you decide to join us, we\nexpect you to leverage your existing network, and build connections throughout the\nprogram to be able to pursue your own research and integrate into the\nhumanitarian world in your own right\u201d. I liked the sound of this. I liked the\nchallenge, meeting people, networking in an unfamiliar but impactful field. It\nsounded like the right next step. I was a week away from submitting my\napplication, and this was the Director of the research institute I was\ninterested in. I was definitely interested. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Life as a student again was not easy. There were ways to\nwork through it due to COVID, with remote classes, optional attendance, and\nalternative forms of learning, but it was still classwork. Reflections,\nanalysis, and readings filled my free time. But it was different than my\nprevious experiences. I had to find real-world companies with their real-world\nreports and real-world money and real-world impacts and make informed decisions\nand analysis that fit into a real-world context. It was no longer word problems\nand case studies. I was emailing representatives from coastal restoration\nnon-profits and circular economy start-ups. I was sitting in on teams calls\nwith medical humanitarian organizations and they were listening to me. Not only\nlistening to me but considering how to apply my recommendations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We got to look through caverns full of emergency supplies. <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n And then I was sitting on a bus to visit a humanitarian\nwarehouse outside Helsinki, Finland where medical supplies were actively being\nprepared to be shipped to Ukraine. A place where Emergency Response Units were\ntrained in the use of materials. We got to look through caverns full of emergency\nsupplies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And then I was sitting at a social lunch with the premier\nsupply chain management and sustainable development researchers chatting about\nthe future of supply chains and societal resilience throughout the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And then I was presenting my recommendations for customs\ndevelopment process\u2019 in front of customs officers from all over the world at\none of the most relevant humanitarian conferences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then I was receiving Whatsapp images from previous\ncolleagues, other students, and friends from conflict zones in Ukraine, refugee\ncamps in Brazil, and military deployments in critical border zones. We exchanged\ninformation and advice on how to best move forward in these professional\nhumanitarian environments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And then I was interviewing humanitarian responders about\ntheir experiences with innovations in humanitarian environments throughout\ntheir lives from experiences in Lebanon, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, or DRC. I assembled\na document with innovations to be shared with humanitarian organizations\nglobally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And then I was collecting all the experiences I had had into\nthe longest academic document I had ever created for the thesis presentation\nand submission. All my friends and I collectively, anxiously, spent nights and\nnights developing and perfecting our ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then we were done. I was done. The thesis was submitted.\nThe courses were completed. The credits were marked. The diploma was in hand.\nAnd my friends, they were too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And all we could say, as we looked to an unknown future, was<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHello, Master\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kieto Mahaniah wrote his thesis in the spring of 2023 on Innovative Quantification Methods for Medical Commodities in Humanitarian Responses after two years in Hanken’s Humanitarian Logistics programme, and graduated in October. He now works as the operations coordinator for Hanken’s Humanitarian Logistics and Sustainable Supply Chain Research Institute, supporting international humanitarian research as well as the academic programmes at Hanken’s Supply Chain Management and Social Responsibility subject. He lives in Helsinki, Finland with his many plants, and spends his weekends outdoors running, climbing, backpacking, swimming, skiing, or any other way of enjoying the natural world. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/scm-and-sr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2023\/11\/BLOG-BANNER3-1-1024x768.png\")
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