The annual Researchers Night event was organised on 29 September 2023 by the University of Miskolc. ProSkill Project Coordinator Tamás Bako and her colleague Dóra Andráskó took the occasion to promote the ProSkill project and its results from 17:30 to 19:00. Approximately 200 people attended the Researchers Night and had the opportunity to learn more about the project.
EFG President David Govoni and Interim Director of Stakeholder Engagement Maureen represented the European Federation of Geologists at the 60th anniversary of the American Institute of Professional Geologists (AIPG) that took place from September 16th to 19th in Covington, Kentucky.
AIPG generously extended the opportunity to the European Federation of Geologists (EFG) to set up a booth, enabling the Federation to showcase its diverse range of activities. This platform was particularly valuable for introducing EFG’s EU-funded projects, including the ProSkill project.
ProSkill Coordinator Tamás Bakó participated in the Green Tech Conference taking place on 25 and 26 May 2023 in Zalaegerszeg, Hungary. Tamás Bakó participated as the representative of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Miskolc and had the opportunity to promote the ProSkill project results.
Students and corporate, institutional and government stakeholders participated in the conference.
The Hungarian Minister of Energy, Csaba Lantos, opened the conference on 25 May and the Minister without portfolio for Land Development, Tibor Navracsics, opened it on 26 May.
The conference and trade show focused on green technology and sustainable development and tried to answer the following questions: Will we have enough energy all the time? Can we finance our energy needs? How is the energy mix of Hungary developing? Can we achieve energy independence?
The Erasmus+ project TRiPGiFT organised the second online event ‘Training pupils on geosciences through Virtual Field Trips’ on 9 May 2023. As the event focused on geoscience education, the ProSkill Coordinator Tamás Bakó was invited to give a presentation on the lessons learnt thanks to the ProSkill project that can be applied to other projects.
The TRiPGiFT online event was 4 hours long and different experts on geoscience education and virtual reality provided interesting presentations on related topics (see agenda).
The TRiPGiFT project will provide new tools for teaching and promoting geoscience education. Three Virtual Field Trips will be developed for understanding geological-geomorphological features, marble mining and extreme weather events accompanied by corresponding new educational material.
The second TRiPGiFT online event was recorded and it is available at the following links:
The ProSkill guest lectures have aimed at enhancing the soft and hard skills of students to achieve higher competitiveness in the international market. The most relevant soft skills for the raw materials sector were identified by conducting interviews and questionnaires with industrial managers within Workpackage 3: Building community among partners – development of a skill ecosystem. The results of this research have been taken into account by project partner universities for planning the guest lectures.
Guest lecture 2 by the Faculty of Materials Science and Technology in Trnava of the Slovak University of Technology: Stellantis presentation by Martinom Dzamon and visit to the factory
Each partner university has been organising guest lectures between 2021 and 2022. Most of the lectures were organised in the different national languages: Slovak, Czech, Hungarian and Polish. Due to the pandemic, some of the lectures were online instead of in person.
Guest lecture 3 by Faculty of Materials Science and Technology in Trnava of the Slovak University of Technology: Presentation by Martin Foltin
The topics of the lectures were related to the soft and hard skills needed in the raw materials sector, such as project management, soft skills in practice, social media management or the skills needed in the industry – with presentations from companies like Siemens, BMW and Stellantis.
Guest lecture 3 by the Silesian University of Technology: Presentation by Adam Bosowski
You can find some of the presentation slides of the guest lectures in the ‘Resources’ section of the ProSkill website.
The ProSkill Inter-University Field Trip 2022 was hosted by the Slovak University of Technology of Bratislava, in the Faculty of Materials Science and Technology in Trnava. The trip was organised from 7 to 9 September 2022 and students and teachers for the ProSkill partner universities participated.
Participants of the ProSkill Inter-University Field Trip 2022 in Slovakia
Trnava is the oldest royal city in Slovakia with beautiful architecture and the largest preserved city fortification in central Europe. During the 3-day program, 80 students and 8 lecturers for the ProSkill partners universities had the opportunity to meet together and participate in factory and laboratory visits, workshops and social activities.
After the official registration and welcome dinner on the first day, the attendees took part in a sightseeing tour in the historic centre of Trnava.
The program of the second day focused on visiting a factory: Schaeffler Slovakia in Skalica. The visit included workshops and direct access to the production facilities of one of the biggest employers in Slovakia. Schaeffler Skalica presented its innovative technologies and products related to electromobility, industry 4.0, digitalisation, and renewable energies. All of them lead to a more efficient, smart and sustainable motion and mobility. The workshop was followed by a Q&A session. After this, the students and lecturers visited the production’s most attractive spots for 3D printing, robotics, production automation, environmental engineering, grinding, honing and assembly or milling and turning. The day in the factory was finalised with a quiz for the students and lecturers and a social activity.
Students visiting the factory Schaeffler in Skalica
On the last day of the trip, the students and lecturers attended the workshops dedicated to 3D digitalisation and 3D printing. In addition, they visited the Centre of Excellence of 5-Axis Machining in the Faculty of Materials Science and Technology in Trnava, where the dedicated lecturers and scientists presented their laboratory equipment and had short workshops with the students on 3D digitalisation, electron and laser beam welding, additive manufacturing, 5-axis machining tools, production facilities and systems or virtual reality.
Students participating in the ProSkill Inter-University Field Trip in Trnava were grateful for the interesting, inspirational and educational program. The organiser, the Faculty of Materials Science and Technology in Trnava, thanks all attendees for their cooperation. In addition, they thank Schaeffler Skalica for enabling the visit to their production facilities.
The second ProSkill brochure is now available. It showcases some of the most relevant educational activities organised within the framework of the EIT Raw Materials project, such as the International Mentoring Programme, the Inter-University Filed Trips, the Spend a Day with Me Programme and the Competition V4-SX Simulation of Stock Trading.
All the ProSkill activities aim at developing a high-skill ecosystem in the raw materials industry of the Visegrád Four countries by developing and implementing tailored educational activities for students and lecturers.
Download the new brochure here to learn more!
The final of the ProSkill V4-SX Competition took place from 16 to 18 May 2022 at the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice (Poland). The V4-SX competition (‘V’ from success) is part of the Work Package 5 implementation of the ProSkill project. The main objectives of the competition were to increase the international embeddedness of the local colleges (related to business education and raw materials sector), develop a network among partners and provide students with a basic understanding of stock trading.
Participants of the Final ProSkill V4-SX Competition and partners from the ProSkill project at the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice
The competition consisted of two stages. In the qualifying phase, two-person teams competed against each other at the different ProSkill partner universities In the second phase the winning teams fought for victory in a competition between universities.
Final session of the ProSkill V4-SX Competition
The first phase of the competition lasted four weeks, during which the teams tried to get the maximum profit in virtual trading operations using the SaxoTrader demo versions. SaxoTrader is a comprehensive set of investment and trading features from Saxo Bank, a Danish investment bank operating in the global market. Although the SaxoTrader platform allows to manipulate virtually all known types of assets, students in the competition were able to manipulate raw materials and shares of mineral extraction companies.
Screenshot of the SaxoTrader account of the team from the Technical University of Ostrava
The first place in the ProSkill V4-SX Competition went to the representation of the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice, the second place went to team from the University of Bratislava, and the third place to the team from the Miskolc University. The finalists received certificates of participation and material prizes.
Third prize winners Anna Francuz and Fannie Juhasz from the University of Miskolc. Behind: ProSkill project coordinator Tamás Bakó from the University of Miskolc and Grzegorz Strozik, project partner and leader from the Technical University of Silesia
Winners of the first and second places in the ProSkill V4-SX Competition. From the left: Wojciech Michalik and Anna Wieczorek from the Techncial Universoty of Silesia; Laszló Kosár and Mariàn Pavlik from the Technical University in Bratislava
It should be mentioned that the competition was conducted in a difficult period to generate profits due to the situation in the markets caused by the war in Ukraine. As a result, individual teams converted the starting capital of $ 100,000 into amounts ranging from $ 92,000 to $ 106,000.
Fortunately, however, it was not real money. The main value gained participating in the competition was the knowledge of stock exchange operations, behaviour of commodity markets and listed companies in the complex political and economic conditions of a globalised economy.
Apart from the competition, during the three-day visit to Gliwice, student teams and university project partners could enjoy a rich social programme that allowed students and partners to spend time together and visit the city of Gliwice and its surroundings.
