The first matchmaking event of the project Practice for universities, solutions for companies kicked off on March 25, 2022, at 10:00 at the Faculty of Operations and Economics of Transport and Communications of the Žilina University. The main idea of this project is to support the establishment of cooperation between companies and academia, to bring new partnerships, internship opportunities for students, contacts, and positive publicity. The event was attended by representatives of the academic community - the Vice Dean for Development and Foreign Relations, the Head of the Department of Air Transport, representatives of the Department of Water Transport, and the Head of the Department of Communications, as well as representatives of companies that wanted to establish cooperation with the faculty. The event was attended by companies in a hybrid form:in person attended companies - Airvolute, Envien Group, Groundcom, Tirn Technology, and Vissim and online it was Letisko Poprad - Tatry.Havi and the Capital City Council did not participate in the matchmaking event, but they are interested in sharing contacts with representatives of the academic institution and starting cooperation.The event was carried out only with the participation of representatives of the academic community and individual companies, without the physical presence of students. Some faculty students took the opportunity to connect online and listen to individual collaboration proposals via Zoom meetup. The event offered opportunities for networking and collaboration in the field of thesis topics and case studies or research and development.In total, more than 30 proposals for cooperation were made, and also companies interacted with each other.Due to the increasing number of participating companies as well as academic institutions for this year, we have also transferred the project into an online environment in the form of an online platform Practice for universities, solutions for companies. Faculty, students, and individual companies had the opportunity to get acquainted with the platform, which was presented at the end of the event. We are very pleased with the positive feedback and interest of companies in using the free services of the platform. Specific registration steps and an overview of information about the platform were sent to all participants after the event.The platform is a pilot project with the intention to accelerate collaboration, communication, and networking among the target groups - universities - students - and companies in a digital environment.The online platform link: https://sarioprax.solved.fi/registerWe look forward to contributing together to creating collaborations between the academic and private sectors to build better education in Slovakia.
