INVESTMENTS
I FOCUS ON DIALOGUE AND COOPERATION Bogdan Wenta, the Mayor of the City of Kielce talks new projects, investment allowances, cooperation for the development of modern business service sector in Kielce, as well as about continuing initiatives and the role of vocational training. Outsourcing&More: From the beginning of your presidency, you repeat that you will strive to make Kielce more attractive to business. What steps are you taking to make this happen? Bogdan Wenta, the Mayor of the City of Kielce: We focus on dialogue and co operation, including Kielce universities. Support given by the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce and the Kielce University of Technology is of great im portance because through properly selected fields of studies we can edu cate specialists who are sought-after on the labor market.
That’s exactly the way it is and there is no exaggeration. This year, Kielce will host the next edition of the European Rover Challenge, which is the only European Rover Competition in Europe. As a Mayor of Kielce I am extremely proud and have great satisfaction that for four days in September Kielce will be the world capital of robotics.
Why Kielce? At this point, the great potential of the Kielce scientific community should be emphasized, especially the one focused on the Kielce University of Technology. I am very proud of both – the scientific staff and the Impuls team, as they are The needs can be seen especially in world leaders. Impuls is a unique rep the IT industry. resentation of our city, which last year led True, the demand for IT and pro the way in European and world competi gramming services is constantly growing tions of rovers. I am pleased that in Kielce and is reflected in how the service mar we have scientists who ambitiously reach ket in cities is changing. IT and program for more, want to be higher and further, ming companies constitute a significant implement science challenges and have segment in this market and generate astronomical achievements in this field. high-quality jobs. We recognize it and try to follow this direction. At the same time, I am very pleased that the construction of mobile robots Big potential lies within the Kielce stu- – including “Martian robots” – has become dents. Suffice it to say that they can a specialty of the Kielce University of Tech conquer even... the Space! nology, and the designers gathered
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around this university in such a diffi cult and demanding field as robotics are recognized and appreciated internatio nally. Such successes are also a motiva tion to support the development of new technologies, because the solutions used in the design of the rover are not only related to the mission of conquering the Red Planet, but may have more mundane applications in autonomous vehicles used by the army or police. Does the city support students at the education stage? Of course. First of all, recently we have implemented the International Scholarship Program of the City of Kielce for high school graduates. We want to encourage the most talented high school graduates to choose Kielce universities, through monthly scho larships in the amount of several hundred zlotys. This of course is a form of additional gratification for them. Kielce has a great scientific base, which thanks to EU funds is becoming more and more advanced every year. The development of our universities in recent years is impressive, but the trend of decreasing number of students is noti ceable throughout Poland. Our program is to be one of the elements of improving the situation.
Outsourcing&More | March–April 2020
