#SDGtalents #UNLEASH-ed

Barely a few weeks after the India trip, I found myself on the road again... this time to take on a different challenge: help find solutions that could contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. I flew to Copenhagen to meet with 1,000 fellow talents in a 10-day innovations lab called UNLEASH. With me was IRRI post-doc fellow, Nitika. It was yet another great adventure!

After 27 hours since we left Laguna, we finally reached the Copenhagen Central Station. The platform reminded me immediately of the Zürich Central Station and Harry Potter depictions of London's Kings Cross Station. I was so excited because I was raring to see if the Denmark vision in my head, based mostly on my experience in Solvang.

Exiting the train station, however, I was kind of surprised that I seemed to be in the middle of an ancient industrial area, similar to my first impression of Nottingham after I got out of the train station. August is supposed to be summer in this part of the world so I brought lighter clothes. However, I quickly realised that summer here is cold for me, with temperatures hovering around 15 deg C. 

After a brisk walk, which saw me pass by the Tivoli Park and the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (a fine arts museum), I finally arrived at my home for the next few nights: Danhostel Copenhagen City. Inside, it had a most modern elevator assignment facility: Tap your keycard on a touchscreen and it would assign an elevator for your use. Once I reached my room, I had my first taste of Danish interior design. The room was bright, with a large window, and the beddings were a white-on-white match to the wall and ceiling. It felt cold, were it not for the wooden floor.

Looking outside my window, I saw that I had a picturesque view of the city. I wasn't sure about what I was looking at but I certainly was interested on exploring this part of the city on foot, before jet lag set in. 

After settling in, I went with Nitika to the city hall, which is close to the convenient stores. With the rain going on, I decided to buy an umbrella. 

After our impromptu shopping trip, we were joined by a girl from CIMMYT, Danila, to the Meat-packing District in Vesterbro, Copenhagen for dinner.  The walk was hilarious because we ended up being followed by other UNLEASH participants who didn't have maps with them. I, naturally, was carrying a city map and was basically orienteering. It was quite obvious where we were headed, even without a map, because we were essentially following other people wearing UNLEASH badges. 

Rounding a corner of seemingly empty brownstone buildings, we finally reached where we were eating dinner. 

Dinner quickly turned into a meet-up with other SDG talents. Many of them were excited to talk about their work, where they're from, and why they're interested in UNLEASH... reminding me so much of those interview rolls in reality TV shows. Although the evening was young, I opted to go back to the hostel straight after eating. I was starting to feel the exhaustion caused by jet lag and I didn't want to sleep walk all the way to my bed.