Reflections on the Day with industrial partners, autumn 2020

Barbora Bühnová, Renata Vévodová a Eva Matějková, 17. 11. 2020

On Thursday, November 12, 2020 the traditional Day with Industrial Partners was hosted by the Faculty of Informatics Masaryk University. The Day with Industrial Partners is a one-day interactive event inviting students and other interested attendees to learn more about the cooperation of the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University (FI MU) with industry within the Association of Industrial Partners (SPP), helping them to learn more about the possibilities to get involved in the offered activities.

For the first time this traditional event was held unconventionally online, and in a new programme scheme.The online format was given by the circumstances and limitations in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision was preceded with a discussion of whether and in which format to organize the event. The online format became a challenge for the organizing team. Representatives of the industrial partners were also in favor of the proposed solution, and mainly thanks to their active attitude and support, the event was deemed successful, as confirmed by the high attendance and feedback from the participants.

In addition to the online form, the new programme scheme was set which thanks to the virtual conditions gave us the opportunity to host 8 parallel workshops held by the industrial partners, accompanied with thematic Blocks as well as online “booths”. The new programme scheme was a result of previous comments and discussion on which the participants of the past event also participated.

Over 275 participants registered for the event. Among the registered participants, there were participants from the Faculty of Informatics, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Economics, local municipality, as well as the partners´ high schools.

The programme was divided into 4 main thematic Blocks, hosted at Zoom platform. We also gave the participants the opportunity to meet Partners´ representatives on online booths via Discord platform. The cherry on the cake were thematic workshops tailored by the industrial partners.

Block 1 focused on Examples of successful cooperation (from the point of view of companies and FI MU laboratories). Barbora Bühnová, Vice-Dean for Industrial Relations at the Faculty of Informatics, took over the moderating role. Václav Matyáš, Vice-Dean for Relations with Graduates and Lifelong Learning, was invited to the discussion. In this block, he spoke mainly as the head of the CRoCS laboratory, which has been working very closely and successfully with companies, not only at SPP, for many years. Jakub Pavlák from Y Soft, Zdeněk Eichler from the Konica Minolta Laboratory Europe, Pavel Minařík from Flowmon Networks and Zdeněk Matěj from the EmLab also took part. The block attracted over 80 participants who, as in all blocks, could ask their questions through sli.do platform and find out what specifically interests them, and at the same time actively structured the discussion. Students were given tips on how to engage in cooperation and develop in the topics of their interest, or how to find the topic of the final thesis, how to use the potential of the competition for talented students, or that cooperation is the result of an active student approach who is interested in opportunities. The video (in Czech) can be viewed here

Block 2 on the topic What knowledge and skills are valued in practice and students/graduates often lack received special attention - it was held as a panel discussion and from the point of view of registered participants it clearly had the highest expectations - and according to the responses 100% fulfilled. On average, 100 participants watched the block on the Zoom platform and dozens more watching via an online stream on the Faculty Facebook. Barbora Bühnová, Vice-Dean for Relations with Industry from the Faculty of Informatics, once again took over the moderating role, inviting other interesting guests such as Jiří Kůr from Invasys, Ondřej Gabrhelík from AHEAD iTec, Miloš Minařík from Safetica and Kamil Řezníček from Kentico. The discussion was lively, factual and even more interesting in not only did address the technical skills as was primarily expected, but also significantly touched on soft skills. Representatives of the companies stated that technical skills are able to train employees as needed, but the added value of the student is a new, innovative and active view of things, and the ability to work in a team, independence and communication is important. The importance of the breadth of knowledge that the university gives to students has been emphasized several times, even in the form of theoretical subjects. Given that the representatives included graduates of the Faculty of Informatics, the discussion also touched on selected subjects that students should definitely take into account, how important it is to gain minimal work experience during their studies, why not be afraid to contact industrial partners during the studies and how use the most from study and collaboration. Students were interested in the minimum knowledge that companies require, when it is appropriate to apply for a position, what amount of work and what else is expected from the company. And the information about the course of the admission procedure underlined the already loaded block of information. The video (in Czech) can be viewed here.

Block 3 was mainly engaged in the organization of internships and partly in the management of final theses. Alena Hooperová, coordinator of study internships at the Faculty of Informatics, took over the moderating role. She invited representatives from companies that actively recruit faculty interns: Matej Hrušovský from Red Hat, Filip Křivánek from SEACOMP, Lenka Stříteská from Artin and Miloš Jakubíček from Lexical Computing. And the intern Jana Applová joined them. The block was conducted in the form of a panel discussion and an average of 52 students actively participated with their questions. They were especially interested in the conditions of the internship, the requirements of the faculty and the other side of the companies. The students were also interested in the position of the intern vs. employees from a financial point of view, benefits, flexibility, opportunities for further growth. The video (in Czech) can be viewed here.

Graduates of the Faculty of Informatics were invited to Block 4 to share their story of whom went through the cooperation of FI and companies. The Block was moderated by Václav Matyáš, Vice-Dean for Relations with Graduates and Lifelong Learning, and Richard Granec ( Honeywell), Patrik Majerčík (InQool), Ivo Kulhavý (IBM) and Jaroslav Tomeček (GoodData) seconded to him with their very interesting entries. Dozens of participants also actively watched this final block. The block was characterized by excellent speakers who had something to say, their stories were engaging and, above all, real. As a part of sharing their experiences, they also significantly touched on the practical issues of what their studies at the Faculty of Informatics gave them, which also nice met with the information provided in Block 2. The video (in Czech) can be viewed here.

In addition to the Blocks, thematic workshops prepared on the industrial partners were held. Students could attend a workshop from Konica Minolta, Lexical Computing, Kentico Software, Y Soft Corporation, Flowmon Networks, Novanta and NXP Semiconductors

The students could also attend the traditional meeting with representatives of companies at the booths as they know them, although in this specific time online via the Discord platform. According to the feedback from students, very well processed, functional and active. The attendance of these online booths, where students had the opportunity to use both text chat and voice chat for contact with company representatives, had about 115 participants.

To sum up, the Day with Industrial Partners was succeeded beyond all expectations, as evident from very encouraging feedback, in which participants appreciate the "excellent technical and content quality of both moderation and performance of company representatives", praises "the entire organizational team, I think they managed it all brilliantly and prepared a great program in which there were no ill-considered things or technical or other problems". They praised a lot Block 2 with the words “Thank you very much for that. I got a lot of useful information, be sure to include it in the future. Of course, thanks to the organizers and individual representatives of companies for their willingness and pleasant demeanor.” But also other blocks, such as Block 4 with the words “Discussions with graduates who worked during my studies gave me a new motivation to continue my studies. It reminded me that work and school are far from exclusive.” And they praised the idea of workshops and online booths.

We are glad that we have once again pushed the borders of cooperation to the next level and that we learned again how great partners we have!