Hi everyone I am Marcus from Sweden doing my PhD studies in the IMPDET programme at University of Joensuu, Finland. I am currently based at Meraka Institute, Pretoria where I am running technology clubs for primary school kids. I was brought up in East Africa and often feel more at home in East Africa than in Sweden. South Africa is a great country with an interesting history and even more interesting future where its cultural diversity is finally slowly by slowly becomming a great strenght.

In your opinion, what does it mean to trust?

Trust in my opinion is not something that comes automatically it has to be earned and can be lost much easier than earned. It is one of the main building stones in all relations (business, friendship, partners...) Trust is also about understanding each other as once I understand how someone works and thinks I know with what I can trust or mistrust about the person. I would say that every person you meet starts on a certain level of trust let's call it the zero level but depending on reputation, context, appearance starting level can be higher or lower. A person can only reach a 100% trust level by long own experience. Every now and then I realize that a stranger very easy can gain my trust or mistrust without being able to justify why. I believe this is something that multicultural encounters can reduce as the more we get to know and understand people of different cultures/contexts the less suspicion and mistrust there will be and the easier it will be to gain trust. In South Africa where I am at the moment I have noticed a lot of mistrust between the color borders which makes me very sad but at the same time it is very stimulating to work with cross cultural initiatives as I believe positive own experiences reduces the mistrust and builds a unity beyond all this borders.

Why do you want to be a part of this research team?

Because I hope this research will widen my perspectives and I will learn a lot about myself and about other people by working in a multi-cultural research team.

What are your personal goals for what you would like to have accomplished by the end of this research period (in December)?

Personal growth, study points and enriched research perspectives