Nordic SYP comes to Vilnius

Nordic SYP 2017 was hosted in Lithuania, in the fall of 2017. The conference was spread out across a three day weekend with an exciting mix of international speakers and cultural events.

Attendees from over twelve different countries descended the beautiful city of Vilnius, to come together in the spirit of cooperation and building bridges between the Nordic and Baltic IEEE sections.

The opening ceremony featured introductory talks from IEEE Lithuania Section Chair Prof Vytautas Urbanavicius, VGTU LinkMenu fabrikas Vice-director Egle Girdzijauskaite, IEEE LIthuania Section YP Chair, NordicSyp coordinator Dovile Kurpyte and IEEE R8 MDSC Andrejs Romānovs. The entertaining opening talks kick started Nordic SYP 2017 with a high quality that became a recurring theme throughout the 3 day conference. 

Internationally renown speakers

The first day featured an excellent caliber of speakers, sharing a wealth of knowledge and skills to the international audience in attendance. Romualdas Maciulis, a certified human behavior expert, business consultant & international speaker began a series of talks on innovation and leadership.

A serial business owner, he has made all the mistakes and through trial & error found out what works and what doesn’t. With experience of working with international clients and holding seminars to audiences of up to 2.000 people in over 20 countries on 3 continents, Romualdas gave attendees a fascinating talk on his experiences and tips on how to help foster a successful career in engineering.

Young Professionals

IEEE´s own Flavia Dinca gave a wonderful talk on experiences gained from driving IEEE Young Professionals forward.

Flavia gave an overview of the benefits available to IEEE members, and how to use the resources available to develop strong career skills, necessary for the fast paced ever changing world of engineering.

Also discussed were the volunteering efforts of IEEE, and the numerous avenues to help support the humanitarian endeavors of IEEE was highlighted to the participants.

Soon to be graduated students

George Papadimitriou, from the IEEE Region 8 student activities committee, gave a talk aimed at providing more information on how SAC is supporting the innovation and leadership infrastructure of the IEEE student branches across Europe.

SAC is the IEEE committee responsible for student programs and benefits, and making recommendations to the Member and Geographic Activities (MGA) Board. These volunteer members provide important viewpoints and information, and represent the voice of the over 100,000 IEEE Student and Graduate Student members worldwide.

Multicultural Networking Event

Day 1 of the Nordic SYP 2017 was concluded with a team-building multicultural event. Stalls containing food and products synonymous with the various countries of participants were setup.  The ice-breaking event was much appreciated after a full day of talks and workshops.

The session was also a timely reminder of the similarities and differences of the countries in attendance, and an opportunity for participants to build networks with similarly driven and ambitious professionals starting out on the career path.