Students inspired by the networked society

Ericsson Nikola Tesla held its, already a traditional 13th year in a row, International Summer Camp. The Summer Camp aims at top graduate students of electrical engineering and computing. Due to project type and nature students from the Faculty of Geodesy, the University of Zagreb, took part for the first time in the Summer Camp. A total of 68 students participated in the Camp program. Under the expert supervision of mentors, coming from Croatia, Sweden, Hungary and China, students worked on 33 projects in Zagreb, Split and Budapest.

With the improvement of higher education quality, this project’s added value is in preparing students, throughout working on real ICT projects, to gather valuable experience, which will be a precious for them in the labor market, they will soon enter. Simultaneously, the Camp is an excellent opportunity for students to get better acquainted with the way of working and working conditions in a leading ICT Company as Ericsson Nikola Tesla. We always proudly emphasize that in the previous years, for many of our current employees; it was just the positive experience, acquired during Summer Camp, which proved to be crucial when choosing an employer.

The 2013 Summer Camp was held under the working title “The Challenges of the Networked Society“. The Camp's participants studied selected problems related to active R&D projects (M2M, IPTV & Multimedia) and worked on applications and tools intended for internal use. The basic idea was to enable suggesting innovative solutions and prototype applications, and improving the already existing ones as well, with students actively taking part in the research.

On October 1, 2013, the end of the Summer Camp was marked witha day-long activities in the Company premises. The program covered demo sessions, during which the visitors could talk to the students and mentors, who worked on projects, see several expert presentations and attend the Summer Camp gathering closure, which was streamed to/ followed by the Company's R&D students and mentors in Split.

Aside with students and their mentors, the representatives of Academia, led by Prof. Dr. Melita Kovačević, University of Zagreb vice chancellor, also attended the ceremony. Snježana Bahtijari, Marketing and Communications Director moderated the gathering, and the Company President, Gordana Kovačević, MSc addressed the audience: “The phenomenon of communicating from any place and at any time, and networking of everything that people, business performance and society may benefit from, are just some of the features of the future networked society. Thus, the technology and all other society development should be observed in the light of the increased use of ICT, and in a demanding global environment of the need to collaborate, innovation and work in teams it is today greater than ever. Due to evident and recognizable results, here, at Ericsson Nikola Tesla, we believe that our Summer Camp is an ideal environment for strengthening innovativeness, open dialogue, team work, learning, exchanging knowledge and experience, i.e. everything we need in order to reply to the future challenges. I am exceptionally proud of the Camp's quality and tradition, and the fact that by now, Ericsson Nikola Tesla Summer Camp was awarded twice as the best student project, best practice and perception, in student's opinion. Thus, it is no surprise that Summer Camp became recognizable and reputable brand in Croatia, region and global Ericsson”.
On behalf of the University of Zagreb, Vice chancellor, Prof. Dr. Melita Kovačević welcomed the audience.  She underlined the utmost importance of stronger connecting the Academia with the economy, with an aim of increasing Croatian competitiveness in a demanding global market. She especially emphasized great satisfaction with the excellent results of Ericsson Nikola Tesla Summer Camp, which were not only recognized in Croatia, but beyond.

Dr. Darko Huljenić, the head of collaboration with the Academia, who is also one of the Summer Camp founders, spoke of the Summer Camp history and continuity, which was, over the last 13 years, attended by over 500 Croatian and foreign student. He expressed his gratitude to Faculties which collaborated in this year’s Summer Camp, and, together with the Company President, Gordana Kovačević, presented them awards for successful collaboration. The recognitions were handed to the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb; Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Split;  Faculty of Engineering, University of Rijeka; Department for Informatics, University of Rijeka; Faculty of Engineering, University of  Josip Juraj Strossmayer in Osijek;  Faculty of Geodesy, University of Zagreb; Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Sarajevo; Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Tuzla and Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Montenegro.
Prof. Dr. Dinko Begušić, from Split Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, extended his gratitude on the behalf of all the Faculties which received recognition. He did not hide his satisfaction, that this extremely important project of collaboration between economy and the Academia, places the needs and interest of students in the focus of attention, which has a strategic importance for the future development of Croatia and society as a whole.

Dr. Saša Dešić, the Head of Summer Camp, briefly presented this year’s Summer Camp. The projects, divided this year in three units: M2M, IPTV & Multimedia and applications and tools for internal use, were presented by students Nikola Predovan, Petra Kirin and Matej Šerbec.

Silvija Prlić, Andrej Grgurić and Hrvoje Kolarić, today, successful Company's experts, working in demanding global projects, shared their Summer Camp experiences.  They told students that in order to get ahead in their careers and to work in global and EU projects in which they work, a constant focus is placed on lifelong learning, which includes professional, business and social skills specialization. Taking into consideration the work in multinational environment, it is important to constantly work on improving the Company’s culture and the acceptance of diversity. In the end, they all agreed, that the most important thing for success is a team work.
After closing the gathering, the guests took Ericsson Nikola Tesla Technology Road Tour with great interest, where they were introduced with the cutting edge Networked Society ICT solutions. 

Communications Ericsson Nikola Tesla