Winter 2021 Newsletter

2020 has been challenging in all ways as also the higher education sector has been highly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions. Specifically, those BENEFIT project activities involving gathering and face-to-face exchange of knowledge, such as workshops, meetings, trainings, mobility, travel activities and equipment deliveries have been affected. Nevertheless, we worked hard on reshaping, modifying and replanning of these activities and were successfully able to adapt and act accordingly without creating major delays nor compromising the amount and quality of project outcomes. In fact, BENEFIT partners from the Western Balkans succeeded in completing one of the most tortuous challenges, namely the equipment procurement and installation process with the final delivery at the laboratory in Banja Luka in September and October 2020 (in addition to the already completed labs in Belgrade, Niš, Novi Sad, Tuzla, Sarajevo), so that all material was ready to be used during the semester.

What we achieved in the second half of 2020:

  • September 7-8, 2020: The University of Niš hosted the last professional teacher training planned in the framework of BENEFIT’s WP4. The virtual event covered the topic “Role of software in education, research and practice” and included the intervention of Prof. Dr. Branislav Gerazov from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology of Skopje, Macedonia, an expert in the use of free software in higher education. The agenda can be found here;
  • September 21-22, 2020: The scientific conference ERK Portorož took place in a hybrid modality both online and in presence with some participants. There was a special session dedicated to BENEFIT and 12 papers authored or co-authored by BENEFIT project partners;
  • October 13, 2020: A webinar on “Studying telecommunications engineering” was hosted by the School of Electrical Engineering of the University of Belgrade. The agenda can be found here;
  • November 16-17, 2020: InTsikt is an annual international symposium where industry, academia and government institutions exchange knowledge and experiences within the ICT domain. The symposium is traditionally organized by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering University of Tuzla, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana and BIT Center Tuzla. The 2020 edition was held as an online event and saw the inclusion of a special session to present final achievements of BENEFIT. The program can be found on the dedicated website: http://intsikt.ba;
  • November 26, 2020: University of Klagenfurt held a virtual consortium project meeting in order to discuss and define final activities and goals
  • Our industrial partner NiCAT, Niš Cluster of Advanced Technologies, organised two online lectures targeting ICT students via Zoom on two different days (Dec. 15 and 21, 2020). The topics of the lectures were “How to achieve a successful career and what is the first step – the key elements of success” and “Business in the field of application of AI and development of a team of cyber security analysts”;
  • Establishment and signing of a cooperation agreement between all project partners for the maintenance of the project e-platform, website and internal project management space beyond the end of the project;
  • 7 days of staff mobility from the University of Tuzla to the University of Ljubljana.

Final upcoming events:

  • Online open event and hackathon hosted by the University of Novi Sad in January 2021;
  • Final project meeting hosted by University of Klagenfurt in the last week of January or first two weeks of February 2021.

CLICK here to access the deliverables and reports

Information: For further information please contact us by sending an e-mail to project-benefit@aau.at