EESTEC Magazine 39th-Issue SC2017 by EESTEC Publications

April 24th no: 2017/1 VOLUME: 39

EESTEC International Electrical Engineering STudentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; European assoCiation Mekelweg 4, 2628 CD Delft, The Netherlands web: eestec.net email: board@eestec.net

CON T E N T S EDITORIAL NOTE ..............................................................................................................................1 BOARD ............................................................................................................................................2 MAGAZINE TEAM MEMBERS ............. ..............................................................................................3 EESTEC NETWORK TODAY ................ ..............................................................................................5 V IRTUAL REALITY ............................. ..............................................................................................6 BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING ...............................................................................................................9 INTERVIEW WITH THE BOARD ........................................................................................................10 MEET THE LEADERS .......................................................................................................................13 OBSERVERS ....................................................................................................................................15 PROJECTS .......................................................................................................................................18 A LUMNI RELATIONS ......................................................................................................................20 HISTORY OF EESTEC ......................................................................................................................21 EVENTS ......................................................................................................................... ................22 WORKING ABROAD ............................. ............................................................................................28 HOW EESTEC CAN INFLUENCE OUR FUTURE? ................................................................................29 A RTICLES FROM PARTNERS AND COMPANIES ............................................................... ................30 ERASMUS DIARIES .........................................................................................................................33 SPECIAL THANKS & SOURCES .......................................................................................................36

INTRODUCTION

EDITORIAL NOTE

Dear readers, After an amazing year, I am here to welcome you to the 39th Edition of EESTEC Magazine! In this edition, we are focused on experiences. Thus, EESTECers and other people share their experiences in different topics such as EESTEC, various technical topics, Career and Travelling. So in this issue, you can read more about Establishment and Bodies of EESTEC, learn more about what is the EESTEC, International Board opinion on different subjects, but additionally the inputs from the Leaders of our International Teams. Also, we have the opportunity to meet our 3 new Observers (Bursa, Split and Milan). Then, many interesting statistics are presented such as the number of EE/CS Students within our association etc. Furthermore, we are approaching EESTEC History book to learn useful information and we are taking a look at some of the events that we had during this year. Do you think that is all we have? No! We have several technical articles about Virtual Reality, and Biomedical Engineering. Then, let’s see what is happening after EESTEC with interesting articles on working abroad and EESTEC Skills in your work from some Alumni. Finally, I would like to say a big thank to all the members of Magazine Team who contributed a lot to this issue. Have a really good reading time!

Christos-Marios Plotas Publications Team Leader, LC Patras

INTRODUCTION

BOARD

Dear EESTECers, Another Association year is coming to its end, another generation of EESTECers had the chance to learn, grow, travel, take on opportunities and contribute back to our Association. sharing experiences is a fundamental part of EESTEC. We share experiences by traveling, working and growing together. Having each other and sharing experiences is what motivates us! Sharing our EESTEC spirit is what makes us love our Association! Not coincidentally, this issue is dedicated to sharing experiences. Because sharing and working together means growing together! It has been almost a year since 30th Congress in Belgrade and yet it seems so close and so far away at the same time. The beginning of the end of another mandate is approaching. Another great year for EESTEC has passed, more milestones were achieved and we are one step closer to the future we envision for EESTEC. As long as EESTECers are still eager to travel, learn and contribute and EESTEC spirit is alive, the future of our beloved Association is guaranteed. However, EESTEC is a living organism just like all of us! It learns, it improves, it changes! EESTEC grows every day and transforms by adjusting to its members! Some decisions need to be made so that we don’t get stuck in the past but actually power the future! So, how do YOU envision EESTEC in the next years? What do YOU want to get from it? The future of EESTEC is up to you! So, share your experiences, take initiatives and contribute! Before we let you dive in this issue and let you enjoy another EESTEC Magazine, I would like to take the opportunity to thank every Leader, Coordinator, Board Assistant and Team member for their contribution this year! Having you by our side was an important source of motivation for us and knowing how much you love our EESTEC, we are sure that the future of EESTEC can only be bright! Enjoy reading!

On behalf of the Board, Maria Kouneli

INTRODUCTION

MAGAZINE TEAM MEMBERS

Hi there! If you are here, and you are reading this, it means that you are an EESTECer. If not, you should join EESTEC. If you are reading this, you are probably very active as an EESTECer. If not, you should do it. If you are reading this, you are probably involved in the Internaional teams. If not, you should do it. Why should you do all of the above? Well, just read this issue, and you will realise that we are not just an association. We are a big happy family that develops together, learns together and grows together.

Well, well... Spring Magazine is here again! Another productive year came to an end! EESTEC offered me a lot of skills, whether local or international ones. Also, the time that passed, many events, trainings and exchanges took place in a number of places. Our Magazine Team has worked all of this time and wrote down everything special that happened in EESTEC this year, so here is the ultimate guide! The rest of the information comes from Cerdo, who will inform you soon of every weird stuff!

Hoy! This year, I discovered what EESTEC was and joined LC Lille. After that, I wanted to expand the EESTEC spirit and decided to be part of the Magazine Team and meet other members. Today, this is my first edition and also my first experience within an International Team and I was very proud to work with the crew. I hope you will enjoy reading this Magazine as much we enjoyed writing it!

Enjoy this issue, and don’t forget to have fun!

Well, well... Spring Magazine is here again! Another productive year came to an end! EESTEC offered me a lot of skills, whether local or international ones. Also, the time that passed, many events, trainings and exchanges took place in a numberof places. Our Magazine Team has worked all of this time and wrote down everything special that happened in EESTEC this year, so here is the ultimate guide!

“I try to live my life where I end up at a point where I have no regrets. So I try to choose the road that I have the most passion on because then you can never really blame yourself for making the wrong choices. You can always say you’re following your passion.” (Darren Aronofsky). My advice for any EESTEC member would be to treat it as a passion and follow your instincts wherever you go because those are the best leaders.

I am really glad that I had the opportunity to be a part of an amazing team, full of ideas and passion and play a role in the creation of a great magazine, aimed to entertain, inspire and inform people about workshops, events cultural exchanges and every unique aspect of EESTEC. Not only I developed useful skills but I also met many new interesting people, eager to work hard and transmit their knowledge and enthusiasm. I hope that you enjoy this magazine as much as we enjoyed writing it.

INTRODUCTION MEMBERS: Alex Tanasescu LC Bucharest, Anastasia Chouliara LC Xanthi, Hi, guys! I’m really happy and proud to be part of Magazine Team and of this issue, particularly, due to its great stories and news! If you allow me to give a piece of advice, it would be: get involved in EESTEC International teams, not only because of the amazing people and opportunities you will meet here, but also, the awesome feeling of belonging to something that is blossoming every day!

I have been a part of Magazine Team since February and I am so glad that I had the chance to be a part of a great team where I felt welcomed since the first minute! It was a great experience for me to have a great teamwork, collaboration and enjoying the EESTEC Spirit. Enjoy reading this issue of the

Dajana Yasir LC Belgrade, Diana Cojocaru LC Bucharest, Diewer Wilbrenninck LC Lille, Dominika Kwaśny LC Kraków, Dragan Mitić LC Belgrade, Dominique Gherghe LC Bucharest,

This team was my first glimpse at EESTEC from an entirely different side. I was very active in my LC, but being in this team made me realize what EESTEC is really all about. Cooperation, contribution and EESTEC spirit in this team are something that I will always

Ewelina Niemczyk LC Kraków, Hi! It has been an honour to be a part of the team that prepared this issue of the Magazine and EESTEC International. I hope you will enjoy reading it. See you somewhere in Europe!

Gizem Atasolmaz LC Izmir, Mary Parelli LC Athens, H. Furkan Vural LC Istanbul

I am really happy that I have an opportunity to write something for you. Working in Magazine Team has been a great experience for me, I met new amazing people and learned many things about teamwork and myself as well. I totally recommend this team, do not hesitate to apply next time!

Working in this team has been a great experience for me. I am happy that I had this opportunity to meet and work with this awesome people. I strongly recommend being part of EESTEC International to feel EESTEC Spirit. Don’t miss the chance to be part of this great family. Enjoy reading the Magazine!

INTRODUCTION

EESTEC NETWORK TODAY

TECHNICAL EXPERIENCE

VIRTUAL REALITY Is it the right time to hop on the virtual reality train? What is required to start? The world of technology is exciting and currently one of the most important advances in this industry is Virtual Reality. Day by day it whets more and more entrepreneurs’ and investors’ appetites. But are we finally finding ourselves at the right stage in time to embark upon expanding awareness of virtual reality every day? What is required to start? Let’s examine together.

Virtual Reality’s Present and Future In order to fully answer those questions, we should take a look at the status of today’s technology. Firstly, to be able to immerse ourselves in virtual reality, we require virtual reality headsets to be produced specifically for this purpose. For the purpose of this article, we will examine virtual reality headsets under three categories - those that are either compatible with desktop, mobile, or console. In the desktop compatible market, the main players are the Facebook acquired Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Fove. Mobile VR is the cheapest alternative for those wanting to experience virtual reality tech. In this market, where Samsung’s Gear VR is positioned as the most advanced headset, there are lots of headsets from a variety of producers. But probably the most well-known is the Google Cardboard and Google Daydream headsets. The winner of the Console VR market is, without a doubt, Sony’s PS VR. According to unofficial statistics from SuperData (1), 1,255,279 desktop compatible headsets, 2,602,307 PS VR headsets (in the last 4 months another 915,000 (2)) and 2,316,632 Samsung Gear VRs were sold in the 2016 alone. These numbers were below the initial expectation, but that didn’t stop the entrepreneurs, though. In fact, headsets and headset-ready computers are becoming cheaper already, which is expected to increase the sales of headsets and thus increases the size of the market. According to the experts, the number of headset owners worldwide will increase to 130 million - whereas the economic value created by the virtual reality industry will skyrocket to 28 billion U.S. dollar by 2020.

Figure 1. HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PSVR (VRTalk) Which environments are there to develop applications? In virtual reality development, the most popular game engines are Unreal Engine 4 and Unity 5. Unreal Engine 4 is free to use, however, if your quarterly income is above 3000 U.S. dollars you have to pay 5% in royalty fees. C++ is used as the main development language of UE4, moreover, UE4 has its own visual language

TECHNICAL EXPERIENCE called Blueprint which is more intuitive while developing highly visual applications. Also, I should add that Unreal 4 is fully open-source and provides high performance thanks to C++. On the other hand, Unity 5 is completely royalty free. You only pay if you want extra features. Unity’s main programming language is C# and there is a very big and helpful community that allows developers to find answers almost instantly. Because of this support, Unity is more popular for prototyping simple games. However, developing desktop compatible virtual reality requires lots of performance due to the frame rate threshold of 60 fps.

Figure 2. Unreal and Unity are the first options that come to mind when developing VR apps. (RoadToVR) Where are virtual reality applications featured? Steam: Being the biggest marketplace for games on earth, Steam hosts both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift games. In order to publish games on Steam, you have to go through Greenlight where your game is upvoted by the community. However, in the upcoming days, Steam will replace Greenlight with a pay-to-publish model. Steam also charges royalties - however, it depends on your success. Oculus Store: The store for Oculus Rift and Gear VR games. The Oculus Store is not only royalty free, it also pays Unreal Engine 4’s royalty fees. Viveport: HTC Vive’s own game platform. PlayStation Store: Store to publish PS VR games. There is a $2500 entry fee, though. AppStore and Play Store: Some of the mobile compatible VR applications can be published here. Especially Google Cardboard applications are featured on the Play Store. How is the virtual reality gaming market now? The big players have business models which require creating high investment, high-profit games. Since VR headset owners are not meeting those expectations yet, AAAs are on stand by and are avoiding investment in developing full-blown games. But this is creating an opportunity for indie game studios to enter the market with low barriers in place. Be warned, however, as this opportunity won’t last for more than a couple of years. Virtual reality is a rapidly advancing technology with a small user base and has crucial problems such as motion sickness that need to be overcome. On the other hand, virtual reality offers an experience that mesmerizes the Z generation - who are the future consumers. I recommend that you do your own research if you are considering entering a sector in virtual reality, especially one other than gaming. Also, do not forget to listen to stories told by fellow virtual reality developers. They will be able to give insight into the problems you are having and will have had the problems you are going to have.

TECHNICAL EXPERIENCE

Figure 3. The Oculus Store hosts a variety of applications developed for the Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR. (GrimPanda)

YiÄ&#x;it Bekir Kaya Cofounder and CEO of CBILAB Studios, a VR storytelling Company. (www.cbilabvr.com) Cofounder and Director of CBILAB Academy, an innovation academy for students. Software developer since 14yo (13 years), gamer since 3. PhD Candidate Data scientist, Six Sigma Green Belt. Python and Big Data Evangelist

TECHNICAL EXPERIENCE

BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

The Brain has always fascinated the scientific community but until today only a small portion of its behaviour and activity has been decoded. Even though the classic imaging methods, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Functional MRI (fMRI) and CAT Scan (CT) have advanced over the years their rather low resolution still stands as a barrier for the detailed study of the brain activity. As unlikely as it may sound, almost the same resolution is achieved by Electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings which is the simplest and cheapest recording configuration. It is well known that when studying an EEG recording, certain rhythmic activities can be related to the patient’s state. The abnormal absence or appearance of a rhythm can be linked to numerous pathologies depending on the case. Raw EEG data, however, provides little, if any, information about the spatial origin of the problem as the waveforms captured by each electrode do not represent the electric activity of their underlying cortical tissues but are rather the contribution (superposition) of all the active brain sources at a specific point. One could possibly say, “Ok, but we are already able to distinguish several pathological cases as it is, what’s all the fuss about the source localization?”. Given that, each EEG channel represents the superposition of all active brain sources, it is a physical outcome that when the distribution or orientation of the sources change then so do the scalp-recorded potentials. Thus, the identification of those underlying bioelectric sources is the first step to access further insight into the human brain activity. Non-invasive source localization techniques are usually based on the solution of the inverse electroencephalography problem. Considering a realistic model of the head, and a set of scalp recorded potentials, one or more equivalent dipoles’ distribution is sought. The dipoles represent all the active brain neurons at a specific time. The solution of the inverse problem is based on iterative solutions of the forward problem. Namely, for a given geometry (i.e. head), a given conductivity distribution (i.e. conductivity of brain tissues) and a specified internal source, it calculates the body-head surface potentials. In contrast, for the inverse problem the body surface potentials are measured, the conductivity and geometry are assumed known and the equivalent electric source is sought. The inverse problem starts with an assumption of the equivalent source and the potential distribution that this source generates. Thereafter, the potential distribution is compared to that of the EEG recording and if their difference is significant then the orientation and location of the source is slightly altered. Now, the potential distribution is calculated anew and compared again with the original EEG data. This procedure is repeated until the difference between the calculated and the EEG data is very small. The source that generated the last voltage distribution is considered as the equivalent EEG source. The spectrum of the clinical applications of spatial EEG analysis is remarkably broad, with one of the main area of focus being the epilepsy. Its localization accuracy, using a high-density electrode montages, is comparable to those of MRI and PET making EEG imaging a standard low cost tool that can be exploited in numerous ways. Except from epilepsy, the utilization of EEG imaging tools provided significant information about pathological brain activity related to psychiatric disorders, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis etc. Those interested in a more detailed analysis of the above can also see the review “Towards the utilization of EEG as a brain imaging tool” of C. M. Michel and M. M. Murray in Neuroimage Magazine. Georgia Theodosiadou, Master Student in Xanthi, Greece

EESTEC EXPERIENCE

INTERVIEW WITH THE BOARD Please describe what being an International Board Member means! Do you consider that you are and work as a whole?

like a challenge, however, we always reach a common ground! I believe that each one of us bring something completely different to the table. Almost one year later, looking back at where we started and where we are now, I believe that we all learnt a lot throughout this year and every chance to meet each other is a valuable opportunity! Where did you have the chance to travel and what did you do there?

Maria: There are many ways to describe what being an International Board member means. One of them is that you have the responsibility of 4000 people in Europe, that you have to make decisions for people you haven’t met and that you have to consider so many different opinions, habits, cultures. Being International Board is an eye-opening experience as you realize how much diversity there is across Europe and how this makes us special. It also means that English becomes the most spoken language in your daily life. That your friends are online and it is completely normal to have Skype meetings everyday to meet them. After some time you start to really appreciate every single opportunity that you have to meet with others, since it becomes surprisingly good how it feels to meet in person! After working with each other for almost a year, I think that we all have our special role in our team. Working with 5 completely different personalities with completely different

Alex: During this year I have had plenty of opportunities to travel. First, we and the then Board-inOffice gathered in Bucharest for a handover meeting. Second, we as the Board-Elect had a meeting in Novi Sad, the EXITBOM. After this, some time passed, and it was time for the Autumn Congress, and about two months after that the Winter Board Meeting in Krakow. Now we are looking forward to the Spring Congress and the next handover meeting. During the handover meeting, we and most of the then Board-in-Office gathered so that they could prepare us for running the Association. Not a lot of time is spent making decisions there, but the Board-Elect started having a lot of discussions on which

Annual Plans. We also did decide to restructure the teams quite a bit. A lot of teams were merged and a few were dissolved. Team Boards were implemented. After the meeting, I stuck around a few days and had the opportunity to attend one of LC Bucharest’s GMs. I am happy that they have their CP elections in English. Some of the local Board-candidates also mentioned doing a T4T, which just happened! After the handover meeting, it was time to gather to have the BoardElect work. Novi Sad was kind enough to offer to host a meeting just a few days after EXIT festival, which some of us attended. During the meeting we started with some implementation details. A lot happened regarding to EESTech Challenge, which will have its final round in a month. We also invited some coordinators and leaders so that they could assist us with some decisions, that they later would have to implement, and that we could get to know them. On my way there I stopped by Budapest, which also had a GM. Besides having elections, they were rewriting most of their statutes due to changes in the Hungarian legal system. During this process they sang and drank beer! I did not understand much, but it was fun nevertheless. And then, in December, we went back to Belgrade for another Congress. I must say, it was pretty cool to go back to the place we were elected for another Congress, and I was impressed that LC Belgrade took upon them to host another one. We had working and training sessions, and of course, General Meetings. We elected Account Contact Persons, and had a bit of reports. LC Delft surprised me by asking for a financial report which normally only is presented on the Spring Congress!

EESTEC EXPERIENCE about the next Board. We evaluated Autumn Congress to make sure that we make use of everything we learned for Spring Congress. We started thinking about our handover and how we want to handle the next handover. We also got a guided tour of Krakow. There is a Harry Potter bar where things you did not order magically appears. We also learned a lot about dragons and young maidens! Besides the Board related travelling, I did find time to make some more trips. After EXITBOM I went to Finland to attend a wokshop, which is an event where wok is served at least once. When I first arrived to Finland, I was struck by how it almost exactly looks like Sweden. The wokshop took place in a cabin in the woods. Besides woking food once, we spent a lot of time in the Sauna, where LC Tampere enforces a very strict dress code (nothing!). There was also a beautiful lake. We may have consumed a beverage or two. It was most excellent! For New Years Eve, I found the time to go to Poland. I spent around eight days there, and also saw Warsaw, which, of course, is not as great as any of the cities where we have Commitments, but still a nice city. They do have nice sky- and cigar bars, and bigos. Of course Warsaw was not the main destination, it was Place-In-TheMountains-With-Polish-NameI-Cannot-Remember, where LC Krakow had a fantastic IMW with a Bond theme. If the reader is not familiar with Krakowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s IMWs, I recommend finding out what they are like by experience. I know that almost all of you were, at some point, a Board Member in your LC. Could you draw a parallel between being an International Board Member and a LC Board Member? Ruxandra: First of all, being a Board member of any kind, is not an easy job. Many responsibilities are laying on your shoulders and you should find a balance between your personal life, studies and EESTEC. The major difference

the same. Fortunately, thanks to LCs around Europe, we have the chance to meet 5-6 times during their mandate. Also, we are in constant touch with many people from different countries and have the opportunity to work with a lot of new people. Many teams need our supervision, along with all of our Commitments, but what is good is that we can rely on many members who are willing to help us every day. Being a local and international Board member, it requires a different skillset. The way you communicate, motivate members and get motivated and work is very different, as you have to learn not to have personal contact with your Boardies and members, which is fundamental for a local board member. Working in distance brings many new challenges and many new things to learn! What will EESTEC look like in the future? Dalia: Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s difficult to predict precisely how EESTEC will look like in the future. What I can say about it is where I hope to be and that includes having a stronger Alumni Network, having a financial sustainable environment for Operational Events, Congresses and not only, an enhanced knowledge transfer system, regional collaboration on multiple levels, amplified EESTEC image, powerful EESTEC Projects, overall

a Board, are doing what it takes to lead our Association towards organizational growth. Each year, the current needs are assessed and plans are created accordingly. Goals are set and prioritized in such a manner that bring us closer to the desired outcome. Without a doubt, we can say that with every second EESTEC will continue to blossom. Most importantly, what I can say for sure is that its core values will be the same. First and foremost, the people will be creating the same lovely atmosphere in EESTEC and will be still spreading the EESTEC Spirit. EESTEC is and will continue to be the environment in which we can all grow, in which we can make mistakes, learn from them and further develop ourselves on a personal and professional level as well as develop as an Association. EESTEC is and will continue to be the place where we create life-lasting friendships, and memories to which we think of with a huge smile on our faces. That is EESTEC in the future! What objectives have you achieved so far and what leadership challenges did you face? Maria: As every newly elected Board almost one year ago, we started setting some ambitious goals for our mandate! We are happy to see that most of them were achieved in a very satisfactory way! I will not cover everything, however, I would like to

EESTEC EXPERIENCE First and foremost, we managed to significantly raise the international activity in our teams and projects! The introduction of Team Boards was a decision that had a huge impact in the motivation of Leaders and Coordinators, especially in comparison to previous years. Another topic that we are proud of is the pilot year of Regionalization! We knew from the very beginning that this would be a challenge as it is an important change in EESTEC. We were aware of the challenges that came with it, however, we decided to proceed with it. Even if the Regions are still in its first step, we are happy that for the first time, knowledge transfer between Commitments actively takes place, which is an important step for the growth of the whole network. Last but not least, what I’m personally really proud of is EESTech Challenge! Defining from scratch a brand new project, taking into consideration the needs of the Association was a challenge! We sincerely believe that EESTech Challenge will become a strong brand across Europe in the next years! Of course, this is not all! And it is not the end! There is plenty of time until July for more things to come ;) Do you have a message for EESTEC-ers?

Nenad: I joined EESTEC two and a half years ago and my life has taken an extraordinary twist..

I realized that I don’t refer to EESTEC as an association, but as my experience and time spent in it, binding all the memories and feelings over the years in that one acronym. For me it represents more than just a word, it represents the most enjoyable period of my student life and also every friend I’ve met along.

Maria Kouneli - Chairperson Alexander Eriksson - Treasurer Nenad Perčić - VC-EA Dalia Papuc - VC-IA

Maybe this sounds funny for you, but EESTEC is the place where you can improve and come closer to the person you always desire to be! All you need to do is give yourself in and be open minded. You need to push yourself into situations that not always make you feel comfortable, however, the outcome and experience you gain this way will be giving you answers to the questions you otherwise would never have. Do not be afraid to try new things, EESTEC is exactly the place for every single idea you ever had, it’s just up to you to make it happen. Along the way, you will meet many new friends that share the same passion for the things you all value, and you will be able to experience life in ways you otherwise would never do. So, no matter if you are just starting or you’ve been in EESTEC for a while, give yourself courage to do something new and spread the smiles across Europe. It is up to us to tailor our unique story, and one day share it with others, remembering every detail, all in a single acronym that translates into so much more than you can say with words, just by saying “EESTEC”.

Ruxandra Andreea Codreanu - VC-AA

EESTEC EXPERIENCE

MEET THE LEADERS

Being the Design Team Leader is a really special experience. For 1 year you get the chance to work with people all around Europe who share the same passion as you. I did learn a lot about myself, strongly improved my self-awareness and time management. I would just like to thank the DTB for being there, not only as the best Boardies I could’ve wished for, but also as amazing friends.

Being a Team Leader, especially in Education Team, gives you a higher purpose, to help everyone! This year has been an incredible experience, handling all the commitments and even the teams, helping them become better and stronger, assessing what they need, basically parenting the association. Working with the most amazing people in the association and seeing how devoted they are to our work has been rewarding in so many aspects!

Armin Avdic Design Team Leader

Aslihan Bener Education Team Leader

It is truly amazing to see how people can be your friends, motivators, and part of your life, even if you’re only meeting with them online. Being a Regionalization Project Leader brought me new friends, improvement and certainly great time! Bojana Mihajlovic Regionalization Team Leader

Being a Team Leader is a mixture of things. It’s a great time spent with special people, but also a huge responsibility and need of dedication. I’ve learned a lot and I’m sure this experience will help me a lot in the future. Jakub Pacura Public Relations Team Leader

EESTEC EXPERIENCE

A Project Leader - I was never really feeling like one. It was always about having fun, making friendships and learning about stuff. Most of the time, it was what I enjoyed, and people that I was working with did too. After a time, I realized - people were happy and that motivated them to keep going. After a time, I realized - I was a leader. Milica Stefanovic EESTech Challenge Team Leader

Being a Team Leader faces a challenge after challenge. It gives you an opportunity to truly test out your soft skills in long-term projects. Through this time, I learned how successes and failures build friendships and how strong our organization is. Piotr Sarna IT Team Leader

What is central to the work of the Training Team Leader? People! The two crucial people that are next to me are Burcu and Edita. We are having a blast and I have never worked in a team as productive as ours! Mojca Bertoncelj Training Team Leader

Working for the EESTEC Publications and try to handle all the internal information was a big Challenge for Publications Team. This year we had new construction of the internal publications, but it was really successful. Great and amazing team members in both teams helped a lot this year for our three publications (EESTEC Magazine, EESTEC Digest and EESTEC Weekly News) and helped our Association to grow its International Awareness. Christos-Marios Plotas Publications Team Leader

EESTEC EXPERIENCE

OBSERVERS EESTEC is growing! It is really amazing that our spirit is spreading and connecting more and more people from all Europe. New cities mean more people, knowledge, experiences, fun, friendships, opportunities, breathtaking selfies and obviously, memories! Let’s have a look how our new observers are working. How did they start? We asked some questions to the members of two EESTEC Observers: Milan and Split. Here are their stories.

Split lies on the Adriatic coast, central Dalmatia, on the Split peninsula. Although surrounded by sea as a peninsula, Split also borders with surrounding mountains, Mosor on the northeast, Kozjak on the northwest, and Marjan hill as one of the most important symbols of the city, rises on the west side of the peninsula, in the immediate vicinity of the old city center. The basic activities of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture in Split involve teaching, research, development, professional work and innovation in technical sciences areas. One of the biggest and best-equipped faculties on the campus, FESB is among the first that was built on the campus of Splits University and is among the biggest, not only in size but in reputation, which has been successfully built for more than 50 years. Today, FESB is gathering eminent experts for both teaching and scientific projects attracting more and more students every year. “At this point, we are still at the beginning with 3 (active) members. Since there was a delay with our presentation on official website of the faculty, we are still waiting for the official announcement. All of our members are enrolled in FESB. One of them was a member in LC Podgorica before coming here in Split to study. He directed us to official website after we decided to found an Observer.

EESTEC EXPERIENCE For now, we are trying to fulfill all our obligations and make a strategy for our future spreading that we consider as the most important task. Related to our new members, it goes a little bit harder than we thought it would be. Since we targeted younger students, we have difficulties because they tend to pay a lot attention on their studies and less on student activities. But we hope after we get the official material from our angels, it will be much easier. The only thing we can do from this point is to motivate our members to visit some of the many EESTEC events. So, for now, we hope they will find some time to travel and, through their experience in EESTEC, motivate one another to participate. During the last year we were exploring our students’ possibilities when our member told us about EESTEC and we decided to explore a little bit more which led us to found an Observer. After the 1st meeting with EESTEC representatives, we definitely decided to enter EESTEC and try our best in next periods. We contacted EESTEC in spring 2016. After we had a meeting with Nenad and Edita that introduced us with all the obligations related to our new start. It was in May 2016. After filling all the documents that are required for an application, we officially became an Observer on 1st of August.” What was the motivation that made you create an Observer? The possibility to meet new people from all Europe was very motivational, moreover, our wish to present and connect our Faculty in front of EESTEC seems to be a very positive thing. We wish we will gain more friends and of course represent our city in the best way as it deserves. What are the biggest challenges you face in your work? Like a majority of Observers, we face with difficulties of finding members who will actively enter our Observer and of course finance it. For now, we did not have any chance to receive any financial support since we are still unrecognizable, but that will change. Our Angels are Iza Burnik and Bojana Mihajlović. They help us a lot, and we are very happy to have them. We had a few meetings till now, moreover, we can send them a message whenever we have doubt in our actions.

Milan is a city of opportunities where you can easily find people from all sorts of backgrounds. While in the rest of Italy people don’t usually bother to actually learn English, here you can actually see the benefits of knowing it: from tourists to international students. Milan is the most European city in Italy. It’s definitely not as historically significant as Rome, for example, but the international atmosphere here... it’s really something! Politecnico is really old and besides being known for the excellence in academics, it can also boast about its beautiful buildings, not to mention Piazza Leonardo, recently renovated, one of the most beautiful squares in the city. The University here gives its students a lot of possibilities, both for academic and postgraduate work. Unfortunately, the competition among students is particularly fierce and that’s why they can be kind of cold. Luigi, one of the first Milan Observer’s member, entered in EESTEC last year in Catania. A friend told him about this “group”, which was going to organise some lectures about microcontrollers, and he decided to join him. After that, he didn’t really do much, he just participated in another local event and that was it; until we had the election of the new board. He applied for the Chairman position and he was elected. After that, he started

EESTEC EXPERIENCE traveling more and more, having amazing experiences and making friends all around Europe.After finishing his bachelor in Electronics in Catania, he decided to go to Milan for the Biomedical Master course. In Milan, EESTEC didn’t exist but he still wanted to feel the EESTEC Spirit there as well, that is why he decided to found a commitment in Milan. At first, it was really hard to even approach people, but finally, he met these guys, Federico and Silvia. One week later, 17th of November, Observer Milan was born.We started recruiting and, first of all, we started by talking about the association to Silvia’s and Federico’s friends. Our first official meeting was on the 15th of December. Our Angels are Saša and Célia. Our first meeting was on the 14th of December, and until then we had a meeting per month. They are amazing, have full of experience and are helping as much as they can. Right now we have around 30 members, most of them are from the Biomedical department, but there are also people from Electronic and Computer Science. After our first meeting, we didn’t do much: we had a few meetings with possible new members. Now that the exam period is finally over, we are starting to move and we have already planned activities for the next few months.

I hope we will hear about Milan’s and Split’s new activities and successes soon. First steps are always the most difficult, so congratulations and good luck! Success is EESTEC’s profession! Ewelina Niemczyk, LC Kraków, member of International Magazine Team

EESTEC EXPERIENCE

PROJECTS

EESTECH CHALLENGE

The EESTech Challenge (EESTEC Tech Challenge) is a brand new students’ competition organized by EESTEC. The aim of it is to create opportunities for European students to gain knowledge in the field of EECS and develop a professional network. The technological topic of the competition will be changed annually, and this year the chosen topic is Machine Learning. EESTEC Local Committees around Europe will organize Local Rounds of the competition and the first winning teams of each Local Round will proceed to a Final Round. The teams will be competing in 16 cities across Europe between January and March: Almería, Catania, Ankara, Athens, Belgrade, Cosenza, Gliwice, Kraków, Lille, Novi Sad, Patras, Sarajevo, Tirana, Tuzla, Zagreb, and Zurich. The Final Round is going to be held in May 2017 and it will take place in Zurich. Teams will consist out of three members, who should demonstrate not only their knowledge about machine learning but also motivation, dedication, and team spirit. Those skills should guide teams towards the victory! In order to create as an objective competition as possible, the EESTech Challenge Online Seminars team will organize several online seminars to make sure that everyone has the same knowledge before the rounds. Since EESTEC emphasizes education and self-improvement, this time also we would like all of our colleagues to benefit from this project by expanding their knowledge. EESTech Challenge is something new for us, for everybody. However, we strongly believe that this competition is going to be a successful project that will be the flagship of our Association for many years to come. We are more than sure that by transferring all this knowledge, each lesson we had and each mistake we made during the competition, next generation of EC will be even more successful. We are aware that it is hard to imagine and visualize the whole competition. However, we do not have to do it - what we should be doing is taking the first steps and slowly seeing the effect. It will take some time, but it is worth it. The EC is an international project, but the key if its success is Commitments who will organize it. It depends on all of us. That is why we need your support because only together we can build something great, something that will make a change, a change not only in EESTEC but in the whole Europe. Without the support of the Local Committees this project would not be possible to happen, so remember that “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” Let’s take this challenge together and #TechOurFuture Are you with us? We are with you. EESTech Challenge Board

EESTEC EXPERIENCE

Regionalization Project

As you might already know, the EESTEC Regionalization Project is a process of grouping relatively close Committees that have similar backgrounds. Together with other teams, it takes a crucial role in developing and expanding our organization. The main goal of this team is to have a huge impact in EESTEC by making stronger bonds among Commitments and also between Commitments and EESTEC International. This way we are trying to improve communication and collaboration, the support of the network and speed up development of all Commitments by transferring knowledge, motivating each other, sharing good practices, experiences in PR, FR, HR and every other field that we are facing challenges in. Also hopefully, the first live Regional Meetings will be organized! The idea about making regions in EESTEC was born in 2014 and, since then, many people have been involved in creating the first steps. Through the last two years, different opinions from many experienced EESTECers were collected. After few sessions, two presentations on Congresses in Madrid and Belgrade and couple of meetings, the Annual plan, with strategy and the map of EESTEC Regions for the future time period were created. The map currently consists in 6 Regions, from 6 to 10 Commitments, and every Region has its own Regional Coordinator. Of course, I cannot mention the Regions without mentioning motivated and passionate Regional Coordinators: • Duygu Doyran - LC Aachen, West Region Coordinator • Katarzyna Olbromska - LC Krakow, North Region Coordinator • Narcisa-Laura Bacău - LC Bucharest, Central Region Coordinator • Božidarka Radović - LC Podgorica, Balkan Region Coordinator • Barış Ateş - LC Ankara, South-East Region Coordinator • Luigi Privitera - JLC Catania, South-West Region Coordinator In the first two months of working together, we were discussing the strategy and plans, and we were thinking about how to make the bonds between Commitments better. In November we started the online meetings and until now all Regions had few meetings, during which they were discussing the most common problems that they are facing. I believe, for a couple of months of working together, we did a great job. Also, in following months, I expect more and more initiative from Commitment’s representatives. So far, many of them showed an amazing collaboration and we are more than happy to have them as a part of this Project! At the moment of writing this article we are preparing the documents about live Regional meetings, so for the following years, I expect to see at least one Regional meeting per year per Region. While working on this Project, we want to learn new things, gather experience, meet new people and work with them. Last but not least, the important part is to have fun while doing all the above! :) Don’t forget to think big, think huge, think EESTEC! See you soon! Bojana Mihajlović - LC Belgrade, Regionalization Team Leader

EESTEC EXPERIENCE

ALUMNI RELATIONS

Finding myself 50 miles away from the airport I should have been on a Sunday morning (4 am) two hours before my flight was the result of several sleepless nights during T4T. I overslept momentarily in the train and went out from the train in a tiny village, which seemed completely abandoned. At that point, a thought that I may miss my flight to a back-to-back event in Tallinn occurred to me. That was just an incident from my amazing experiences in EESTEC. This exposure to an international environment and such unique experiences was the core reason I joined in the first place. In the end, I gained much more from my involvement, but first let’s see what this involvement was. I got active from the first year of my studies; I was encouraged to participate in various teams since LC Athens wanted to strengthen its engagement in international projects. I embarked on the Training Team’s adventures; a fresh and very motivated team back then. The core belief was that by improving the quality of the trainings, the whole association would function more efficiently. I embraced that goal and was leading the team efforts for a year; the focus was to create new projects that would make trainings accessible to everyone across our network. The first Trainers’ Meeting was organized during the year, which opened the new perspective for our team. However, the time of my peak involvement with EESTEC was my election in the Board in the subsequent Congress, a once in a lifetime experience. Surrounded by people eager to experiment, learn, make new friends, five young people should lead the whole association. We had different lives, backgrounds, interests, yet we managed to develop a mutual understanding, combine our diverse skillsets, create positive dynamics in the team. We were very lucky to have such a chance so early in our careers to lead projects on a European scale, from creation to planning and implementation. The chances were limitless and we tried our best to learn and contribute to EESTEC. The most astonishing part was that the more we contributed to the Board work, the more we learned, the more we empowered our careers and lifelong learning. My personal growth through EESTEC is threefold. First of all, a truly international environment provided me the chance to improve my language skills, interact with people from diverse cultural backgrounds, broaden my horizon and understanding. Then the soft skills that I gained are priceless and essential for any potential career path. We all need to make presentations, organize (smaller or bigger) events, persuade other people, create, implement new ideas, and so on. The last and probably most significant part was the friends I have made in EESTEC. People from all across Europe, people with whom I have spent countless hours discussing, enjoying events, sharing the same passions and values. I consider myself lucky that I got involved so early in my student years, which allowed me to participate in several different projects and teams. As an alumnus, I feel glad I participated in all that memorable experiences will stay with me, and of course all these friends I made, with whom we are trying to meet whenever possible. My best advice: Try it yourself, embark on the journey and you will enjoy it!

PS. I didn’t miss the ‘EESTEC’ flight and I am glad because it was an amazing journey.

EESTEC EXPERIENCE

HISTORY OF EESTEC

Did you know...

Did you know that.. • The first name was EESTIC (Electrical Engineering Students’ International Conference) and changed in 1989, during the Congress in Budapest. • There were no LC’s, but only NatComs (National Committees) - a member of EESTEC was not a city but a country • The board was consisted of a Chairman. After that, the elected Chairman had to choose two vice-chairmen. Some years after all of them were to be elected and later a treasurer was added in the International Board. • On 1995, EESTEC was registered in Zurich. It changed to the Netherlands, so that we were able to apply for European grants. • There was a Mail-Manager position in LCs in the past, taking care of the physical mail to keep up the communication within the network. • The first Alumni Team was made in 1998, during the Congress in Italy. • In 1998, LC Vienna suddenly announced that they’re not able to organize the Congress. LC Aachen took over the organization of the Congress and thanks to it everything was fixed. • Cerdo is the unofficial EESTEC pet, born in 2005, during the Congress in Madrid. From that moment, he is making an appearance at every Congress, revealing everything that is happening. Anastasia Chouliara, LC Xanthi, Magazine Team Member

EESTEC EXPERIENCE

EVENTS

Training Team - T4T

Training for Trainers (aka T4T) is an essential event of the Training Team. Because of it we refresh our team and its mindset, we make a new generation of trainers, we make our family bigger. Without it, the Training Team would slowly die. A lot of time and energy is invested in it. Everything starts much sooner than the event itself. There are four parties needed to make it happen and tremendous motivation and dedication from all of them to make it as amazing as possible. Firstly, there are trainers, that deliver sessions at T4T and that seems to be the easy part of the work. They invest more than 100h each into preparation of it. From participant selection, creation of schedule to preparation of sessions and activities that make sure the atmosphere is just right. This year Ania, Csaba, Joja, Kostas, Burcu and Mojca were those trainers.Then, we have our dear OC. This year LC Bucharest is taking care of T4T and provides the place to make it happen. You know how it’s like to organize an international event? Well this is an international event on steroids - more people, more days, more demands. We are grateful that Alexandru, Cosmina, Alexandra M., Alina, Robert, Sebastian, Teodor, Monica, Alina and Gabriela took the responsibility and made the event happen.And of course there are participants. All that is done is done for them. To make sure they get the most out of it. To enable them to reach their full potential. It’s not an easy task for them. They had to read 2 books and had 2 skype meetings before the event. During the event they are put in stressful situation that prepare them for the role of a trainer. Finally, the International Board investing so much time to make participant selection anonymously, helping find the OC and much more. You might wonder if it is worth it… It is more than worth it! T4T is a life changing experience for all everyone involved.Training sessions are the key element of T4T and on the other hand, a slight contribution to the atmosphere at T4T, there is more to it - I never witnessed an event with such high level of proactivity, openness and empathy. Every one that is there is giving their 100% and you can feel it. By the time you are reading this we have the 9th generation of trainers that will inspire, influence and bring positive change inside and outside of EESTEC!When you have the opportunity to attend one of their sessions, take it, you will not regret it! EESTEC Training Team Board

EESTEC EXPERIENCE

Alumni Congress Intro: Glass of wine Before I started to write this article I opened a bottle of a nice semi-dry white wine. What followed is familiar to more or less every EESTECer. And if I need to sum up all of our projects in EESTEC as a Chairman, Organiser or Board Assistant, that’s what it is: Taking the unknown path with good company, but certain that the end will be unforgettable. My journey as active member As many of my friends, I started my journey in LC Ljubljana with an invitation to the party, where it was promised two crucial things: party with the ratio of girls with more than 7,5 % and budget price. My journey continued as vice-chairman, chairman, organizer of the first JobFair in 2007 and organizer of EESTEC Congress in Ljubljana in 2008. History of EESTEC Logo It is nice to know that LC Ljubljana is a founding member of EESTEC in 1986 and that the first logo (with a grid on the background) was made by a sister of an active member of LC Ljubljana. Later, in Sofia, during Congress in 2006, there was an initiative that the logo should be changed. In this congress, I had the privilege to cosmetically modify it to the current design. Inheritance from experiences Besides of all the incredible people that I have met and all the skills that we have managed to acquire, I believe that the crucial part that helps me today in my professional and private life is the timing of those – let’s call them - moments. When you are younger, free minded, not suppressed and poisoned with prejudices, you can take-away and absorb these moments in a much more effective way comparing to the time when you are at work in a framed organization, possibly with big responsibilities. The end is the new beginning When we finished the congress and when I passed the last exam, it was time to say goodbye to LC Ljubljana. But for me, it was just too strange to just cut and forget the unforgettable, so I founded the Alumni section of LC Ljubljana. Today I am proud to say that we have more than 100 members and at least with half of them we have dinner every year called Alumni dinner. This year, 2017, the event will be called Congress Grand Opening. Alumni Congress After the great first Alumni congress in Belgrade it was clear that Alumni section needs to help SCOC with the organization of Alumni Congress. Despite all the professional and family obligations we managed to find the time and prepared some truly nice surprises, parties and gatherings. Thankfully to SCOC, the main part of organization was handled by them, but I hope we helped with some advice. Peter Ušeničnik LC Ljubljana Alumni Section president, co-organizer of ALC EESTEC plays a big role in making my college life more interesting. Coming to college has definitely been a big step for me. Upon arrival, I was greeted by a class of strangers where we had to get know each other. As a spontaneous decision, me and my friends decided that EESTEC looked interesting and we applied to a weekend in a remote part of Slovenia, where we could get to know everyone better. We were a bit shy at first, but we soon fitted in. The weekend was fantastic and later, we decided to officially join the group.I think that the group has made me more friendly and open and that is something I had wanted to achieve for years. I feel now more comfortable talking to people that I don’t know and it has really paid off, as many people have some interesting stories of their own. I am also getting better at public speaking, though I still freeze when confronted with a sudden request to speak with no preparation. I can’t really say that I have a career, but I am involved in a project at our college that I am very excited to start and I will also start working for Alumni.As a new member, I feel that I have not contributed much, apart from assisting with the preparations for the spring congress. Helping organize is something that I wouldn’t normally do. Prior to college, I would never go out of my comfort zone as it was too bothersome to me. However, I decided to help to organize the congress, because having it in one of EESTEC’s founding LCs is something that does not happen often and I felt as though it would be a real waste to let such an opportunity slip by. Senior EESTEC members also seem to always find more work and we are involved in many projects. Helping them, surely made my life busier, but I don’t regret it!Concerning the congress, I am sure that you will enjoy your stay in Ljubljana. It’s a beautiful city and it has many interesting nooks and crannies worth checking out and spring is probably the best season to visit it. I see EESTEC as a place where I relax myself and have friends who are more experienced in the fields that are interesting to me and are always ready to help. As a new recruit, I feel that I have not yet experienced the entirety of EESTEC Spirit; however, I am looking forward to the next years as I am sure that I will never be bored. Klemen Kobau, Alumni Congress Coordinator

EESTEC EXPERIENCE

SPRING CONGRESS ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

A YEAR AGO If a year ago you would ask any Ljubljana member what they would be doing right about now, “organising EESTEC Congress” wouldn’t be one of the answers. Visiting a Congress, maybe, but organising one? No. Now here we are, in Ljubljana, nearing our first EESTEC Spring Congress ever. What is EESTEC Spring Congress? In the past, we had a Congress and an ECM (EESTEC Chairpersons Meeting), but in 2015, at ECM in East Sarajevo, we concluded that it would be better to have two Congresses, one in Autumn and one in Spring; the elections for the next board would be held at EESTEC Spring Congress. Until the last GM of EESTEC Congress in Belgrade, no LC had applied to organise the next Congress. Unfortunately, not having someone to organise the Congress would eventually result in the dissolution of the association. To prevent that, we decided to run as the next SCOC. Our candidature was actually written on a piece of paper during the GM and all the calculations and brainstorming were made during lunch. Our candidature was made with minimum congress requirements and now, when the event is right around the corner, we can say that we made great progress and accomplished a lot. FIRST STEPS AFTER THE ELECTION After the Congress in Belgrade was finished, we returned to Ljubljana all motivated and inspired. The organisation of the Congress had actually started before the Core team was elected. We immediately had to start searching for accommodation and conference halls as Ljubljana can get pretty busy during this time of the year and we had to make sure that we can accommodate our guests in a good hotel. In the end, we chose M hotel. It is located near the city centre, has enough rooms for all the participants and offers the best price/quality ratio. (FUN FACT: M hotel had 3 stars when we booked it, but they, since then, have upgraded to 4 stars!) WORKING WITH FRIENDS IN ORDERS TO GET PARTNERS The Core team was gathering on regular meetings, but in order to truly bond we decided to have a working/ team building weekend. What could be better than going to the seaside with your friends? Aside from working hard, brainstorming, planning and analysing we also had some time to go to the beach and just relax. We had a venue and ideas, however, we still had to find partners and sponsors. In order to attract companies and convince them to cooperate with us, we had to create interesting partnership offers. We offered them company promotion, case-studies and presentations, among other things. Numerous meetings with companies proved to be quite successful, because we put together a good offer and we believed that our project would gain partners. It was not that hard! We also applied for several grants, but despite spending quite some time on the applications, we did not have any luck. In the beginning of July 2016, we contacted the University of Ljubljana and asked for their support. After many negotiations and exchanged emails, we were finally able to set a meeting in February 2017 and get support from them. We had a similar experience with the mayor of Ljubljana. This just goes to show that there is always light at the end of the tunnel – one just has to be persistent.

EESTEC EXPERIENCE

EXTENDING THE TEAM In January, we took our Congress organisation to the next level. As the event was getting bigger and more defined, we needed some extra hands to help us with the unofficial part and the Alumni congress. Four fresh LC Ljubljana members joined our team without knowing what to expect. Everybody started working on their tasks. IT WASN’T ALL ROSES... Because our head organiser Blaž was on Erasmus in Novi Sad, practically the entire Congress was organised online. Needless to say, that meant that we had to overcome several difficulties. All of our meetings were held online and you know how those can go. Sometimes, we lost the internet connection or heard just a random noise, which meant we had to discuss certain topics two or even three times. One time, we were also kicked out of our LC’s premises at 11 in the evening, and we had to find an empty bar where we could connect to the internet again. We never started on time and our meetings were usually quite long, as the agenda kept getting longer and longer. Another issue was that our HO could not attend the meetings with the companies or university in person, so someone else had to go instead or we had to organise an online meeting with them. Other than those, things have been running pretty smoothly. ...AND IT ISN’T ONLY CONGRESS But don’t think that the Congress is the only thing we have going in LC Ljubljana this year. We are actually more swamped with projects than we have been for years: JobFair, PLC+ challenge with Siemens and the new edition of famous Ljubljana Advanced Skills Workshops - Medrock week with IT company Marand are all happening before summer. Later on, in September, we have a revised ASW Bytes of Banking for local students only. One of our most important projects was Jobfair, which happened in March, just one month before the Congress. Several of these projects, JobFair included, played a crucial part in the fundraising for the Congress. To increase the visibility of the Congress and EESTEC in general, we got an idea to somehow connect JobFair and Congress on a local level. That is how Wind of Digitalization was born, a series of lectures and workshops aiming to bring digitalization closer to students and teach them about different aspects of it. Through events, lectures and workshops we show that EESTEC is really about creating opportunities for students to reach their full potential in academic, professional and social life. ROUND THE CORNER Exactly one month separates us from the Congress when writing this article. Our work is far from done. We have another working weekend ahead of us, this time sadly in Ljubljana and not on the coast. We are also in touch with practically every club in Ljubljana just so we can guarantee the best places for parties! We really want to show you that Ljubljana is a lovely and a friendly city, full of nice, interesting and fun people that are filled with true EESTEC Spirit. You will surely fall in love with it! Writers: Blaž Artač, Lara Humek and Saša Janjić SCOC

EESTEC EXPERIENCE

Advanced Skills Workshop

EESTEC LC Ljubljana cooperated with Halcom again and organized the second edition of BoB - Bytes of Banking: SICK. In July 2016, twelve EESTEC participants joined, shared their ideas and gained knowledge with 12 Slovenian students and created 4 innovative prototypes. They were working on a loyalty program for BTC City and created web applications which connected to mobile wallet Hal mBills. Halcom provided a venue for the academic part, so BTCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Accelerator hosted the final ceremony where the representatives of BTC, Halcomâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s CEO, the Dean for academic issues of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Secretary of the Minister of science, culture and sport of Slovenia were present. All the guests were really impressed by the final business pitches of the participants. Just like a year earlier the winning team BTGreen won a paid internship at Halcom during summer 2017 and those with the best business pitches took part in two weeks long MBA Business Summer School at IEDC, a business school from Bled. During the week the participants learned a lot, worked a lot and experienced the vibrant nightlife of charming Ljubljana. After an exhausting week, we headed to explore Bled and Kranjska Gora and relax in those beautiful surroundings of Slovenia. Organizing Committee

EESTEC EXPERIENCE

Technical Workshops - Dr Robot

Bioengineering combines the two major disciplines of biology and engineering to develop solutions for health-related products and techniques. Biomedical engineers of today work at the intersection of engineering, the life sciences and healthcare and apply the traditional engineering expertise to human applications in medicine. Dr. Robot, a biomedical workshop, organised by LC Athens, aimed to introduce students to this rapidly growing field and its life-enhancing applications. The event lasted from 26 November to 1 December and was attended by 13 foreign students from various European cities. The academic part consisted of a visit to the National Technical University of Athens and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Democritosâ&#x20AC;?, the National Institute for Scientific Research, where the participants attended lectures by university professors about the basic principles of biomedical engineering and also had the chance to gain hands-on experience and experiment with the equipment in a laboratory session. In addition, the participants had the opportunity to acquire important technical skills and enhance their programming knowledge in a practical-oriented lesson by Microsoft. The group was familiarized with the language C# and was guided through the development of a ChatBot, a health-related conversational computer program. However, hard skills were not the only aspect of the workshop. Training sessions were also organized on the topic of time management and group dynamics. Photo description: Visiting Acropolis By Mary Parelli LC Athens

CAREER EXPERIENCE

WORKING ABROAD

Moving abroad has always been a life goal that I wanted to achieve. Working in a different environment, with people all over the world and exploring new countries was something that fascinated me. It was one of the reasons I joined EESTEC, and it is amazing that I am now able to write an article for our magazine talking about my experience and hopefully motivate people who share the same ambition and dream as me. It is always hard to leave your comfort zone and break your routine. Sometimes, life is unexpected and not everything goes as planned. It was the same situation for me, when I received an opportunity to work for the University of Bristol, I had to make a decision which would change my life. If I didn’t do it then, I know I would regret it. I am sure that a lot of people wonder how can someone get a job abroad? If one doesn’t have a degree from a foreign university or is not eligible to work in a specific country, then it’s very hard to find a placement. Yes, I can’t say that it isn’t hard. It’s hard even when you get hired to a job and you have to go through all the bureaucratic procedures. Yet, it’s not impossible, especially when you want something very much, you can definitely achieve it at some point in your life. Apart from a great CV, good networking and some luck are also very important factors for finding a job. Someone might have the best skills required for a specific job, but without good networking, one can achieve things harder. It was through a friend I made while in EESTEC that I found my current job and who informed me about a job opening. So I applied, had an interview, sent 3 reference letters and in the end got accepted! When I received the acceptance letter, I didn’t think it twice. I quitted my job, with which I was quite satisfied at that time, and booked my tickets for the UK. And so here I am in Bristol. A whole new city, new job, new people and a lot of responsibilities! The adaptation period lasted for about a month until I finally felt comfortable and like home. It was very exciting to work on something new, study and learn about new and innovative technologies. I am very lucky that I met new colleagues, who come from all over the world and became part of a research team. As far as making new friends is concerning, that is an easy thing, as long as someone is open-minded and willing to overcome any fears regarding meeting new people. Living abroad brings people together. There are always committees that one can join and meet new interesting people. Last but not least, the most challenging part for me, was to be able to live on my own. I was used to live with my parents and have everything ready. But living on your own and managing your own money is an experience that changed me as a person. Becoming completely independent is the greatest achievement for me. I don’t know what the future will bring, no one can guarantee anything. I might return to Greece at some point in the next years, but I might also not. For now, I try to gain as much experience as I can for my professional and personal life. So my advice as an old grandma of EESTEC, is to accept challenges and not be afraid of doing something different. We are still young and have a lot of things to see and experience. It might not be only working abroad, but anything that will break your limits and make you a better person. Fotini Ntavou, VC-IA 2013/14, LC Athens, Alumni

CAREER EXPERIENCE

HOW EESTEC CAN INFLUENCE OUR FUTURE?

Imagine a certain scenario: working with over 100 people on a daily basis, discussing projects, ideas, making improvements to organizational structures. You could say that doing this is a good description of my current work schedule, however it didn’t start one year ago when I became employed. It started even sooner than that. Even if I am considered a senior by many EESTEC standards today, I still clearly remember the days when a group of people in a red shirt came to one of my first lectures and started talking about projects, travelling, friendship. To be frank, I didn’t believe one bit at all. I was quite paranoid, I thought that there had been a hidden catch to it all. In the end, I succumbed to peer pressure and I attended one members’ meeting. There, I slowly became enveloped by a group of people laughing, having fun and joking around with each other as if they were friends for a lifetime. I thought to myself, if these guys are acting, they are doing quite a good job at it. I became hooked. I remember being told stories how being an EESTECer will improve my social skills, time management, leadership, organizational whatnot. Even if I wanted to, I didn’t understand what they meant. It was only after working as a team member on an upcoming workshop from my dear LC Novi Sad did I get an initial feeling as to what these crazy people were talking about. Many projects and EESTEC boards after that, I can honestly say that these people were telling me the truth. However I am not writing this in order to motivate anyone. This is not one of those sappy stories. This is not for everyone. In order to work with people, you need nerves of steel, tolerance and a lot of willingness to compromise. It’s a bloody job and it never gets easier. Was it worth it? I believe that for me it was. Today I work as a project manager in an IT company in Novi Sad. Currently, I am writing this from a beautiful island, Koh Samui in Thailand. My company decided to treat all of it’s employees and take us for a three working weeks journey to a paradise island, just for the fun of it. Would I have found a job in this amazing company had I not been an EESTECer? Maybe, you can never know. What I can tell you is that EESTEC equipped me with the right skill set to move into the business world. Better than most would have at the end of their studies. To top it all off, more than 50% of the people in my company are EESTECers. So I’ve been asked to write about what the years spent working with EESTECers over the years have taught me. The single most important thing is that I have learned who I am (I know, it sounds cheesy, doesn’t it?). However, this time I am serious. Working with so many EESTECers really did give me the opportunity to develop a lot of my skills. Having a list of over 100 friends across Europe that I can call at any point, to chat or to meet up with somewhere, is one of the biggest benefits, both for my personal and professional life. Many would agree, yet some would not. Everyone follows their own path. There is always more than one way a person could take in order to achieve results. I took the EESTEC path, I used EESTEC to my fullest benefit and I believe that EESTEC made me better in a lot of aspects. People regularly ask me if I would do it again, knowing well how much time I invested into EESTEC. All I can say is that I actively continue to do this, every day. The skills I learned in this Association helped me with every new task at work or experience in life. Dusan Miloscin, Chairperson 2015/16, LC Novi Sad, Alumni