Technology and education should be connected. Interview with Dr. Felde Imre

Dr. Felde Imre is Vice Dean of John von Neumann Faculty of Informatics at Óbuda University and is heading research activities of the faculty. In September Sigma Technology Hungary became a partner of the university and started a joint course in the University undergraduate program in the field of technical communication. Dr. Felde Imre kindly agreed to devote us some time to share his first impressions and expectations of cooperation with Sigma. 

Dr. Felde, could you please tell us about your faculty and considerations why it is important for the university to cooperate with businesses?

Óbuda University developed into a university level institution four years ago and was the intellectual heir of former Óbuda University, which was re-established 600 years ago on August 1, 1410. Our general aim is to educate people, who will become important figures of the industry and economy. I’m delighted that we receive a certain appreciation from the industry. At the current stage, six faculties of the university have relations with companies playing significant role in the Hungarian economy, and John von Neumann Faculty of Informatics is among them.

The students at Óbuda University have the job even before they graduate as they get solid technical background here in the university. However, they still need to advance their business or so-called “soft skills”: how to present their ideas, projects, how to debate, how to write down the executive summary. That was the principle idea, which led to our cooperation with Sigma. We have embarked on mutually beneficial cooperation, with starting a joint course on Infocommunication Techniques for third-year students.

Have you already received any feedback from students about the course?

In December, we will discuss the results of the first semester. From my perspective, the course is pretty successful. The students are quite enthusiastic about learning communication techniques from a practical angle.

You never know how you are going to apply the knowledge you get. In my student times, I received technical education, and I was at some extent reluctant to study not technical disciplines like economics, as I was sure that I’m not going to use it in professional career. In meantime, I understood that it helped me a lot in understanding business development principles of how work processes and partner relations work.

Next spring the university will participate in the National Student Scientific Competition. Could you please share with us some details about it?

Yes, Óbuda University is organizing the National Student Scientific Competition 2015. Over 600 students will take part in it, those who are most talented and enthusiastic, those who are about to get a great job in the future.

Students create research projects with professors supervising them. Finally, they prepare a report and send it to the jury, after which the participating group will be selected for the competition. There would be several sessions, each with 8-9 students.

We are glad that Sigma Technology Hungary is among companies who support the competition. It’s a great chance to reveal talented young entrepreneurs at the very beginning of their career.

We have also heard about SmartLab project, which has recently started at your faculty. Could you please give us an insight into it?

Óbuda University has six faculties and three knowledge centers: Intelligent Robotics, Biotechnology and couple of weeks ago we received the approval for SmartLab establishment, the laboratory, which John von Neumann Faculty of Informatics plans to develop next year.

The SmartLab will concentrate on fostering software solutions related to intelligent traffic planning project we are working on now – it will help to trace people’s behavior preferences, which might be useful for enterprises and organizations. We would intend to become a strategic partner of market leading companies.

Dr. Felde, our interview is about to end, and we would like to ask you the last question. Could you please give us your view on our cooperation development?

I want to see Sigma as our partner in the future. There are a lot of opportunities in the long run. I really love cooperation with Swedish-based companies with their approach to work and build business processes.

“We would like to cooperate with Óbuda University in many areas, among them: education, consultancy with thesis projects, and research as the university has already established research centers and has experience in participating in tenders. In Sweden, we have experience in running joint projects with universities, research centers and businesses. Tempus program is one of the brightest examples,” shares Dóra Cseresnyés, Unit Manager at Sigma Technology Hungary, who is responsible for cooperation with Óbuda University. “We are looking forward to new projects and possibilities to work on together with the university.”

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During our visit to Óbuda University Dr. Felde has shown us Remote Sensing lab with drones, which are not just prototypes, but actually working vehicles and are doing measurements of agricultural fields to check the status of plantations, their fertilization and many more.  

The aircrafts receive the mission and perform it automatically, adjusting to wind conditions. Students work a lot with those aircrafts. It’s amazing to observe the birth of scientific projects in the lab. This is what makes the time students spend here really engaging – it contributes to them not only receive theoretical knowledge at university but get some practical experience.

We would like to thank Dr. Felde Imre a lot for his time and great conversation.