The conference, organized by the Faculty of Organization and Informatics, University of Zagreb, in cooperation with partner institutions, began with a ceremonial opening on the premises of the University of Dubrovnik, bringing together more than 80 scientists and researchers, and students from numerous European universities. Part of the participants participated online. In addition to the University of Dubrovnik, the partners of the main organizer are the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER) and the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences (FPZ),the University of Zagreb and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Information Technologies (FERIT), the Josip Juraj Strossmayer University in Osijek, the University of Dubrovnik ( UNIDU) and EDEN Digital Learning Europe.
The main topic of the three-day conference, which will be held until Friday, September 23, 2022, is 'Smart Industry in post-Covid-19 society', and as many as 210 national and international authors submitted their works for it. The authors will present the accepted 57 papers in 12 scientific sections, and in addition, the participants will have the opportunity to see 12 poster papers and 11 research papers by students in their final years of study.
President of the Program Committee of the CECIIS 2022 conference, prof. Neven Vrček, Ph.D. from FOI emphasized that this topic was chosen because of its exceptional attractiveness, considering all the crises facing the Western economy. "We want to make our scientific contribution and try to respond to the challenges of the social and energy crisis and reindustrialization, which will include more intensive use of artificial intelligence, robotics, as well as new business models," said Professor Vrček and added that a special contribution to the conference was made by two respected American lecturers who deal with software engineering and aspects of human activity in synergy with technology, Prof. Nenad Medvidović, Ph.D. (University of Southern California) and Prof. Ozan Tonguz, Ph.D. (Carnegie Mellon University).
The importance of the conference was also recognized by national institutions, on behalf of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia, Mr. Bernard Gršić, State Secretary in the Central State Office for the Development of the Digital Society, attended the official opening. Mr. Bernard Gršić emphasized the positive indicators of the development of the digital society in Croatia, to which this conference gives a special contribution. "Young people in Croatia between the ages of 16 and 24 are in first place in the European Union in terms of developed digital skills, and educational institutions play a key role in this," Said Mr. Gršić.
The three-day programme of the conference for all participants, which can be partially followed online, also includes presentations of students' works as part of the 12th Student Poster Section, led by Prof. Violeta Vidaček Hainš, Ph.D. and Prof. Victoria Appatove, Ph.D. Upcoming later in the day is a panel discussion "Smart University for Smart Industry" which will be led by Prof. Blaženka Divjak, Ph.D.
On Thursday and Friday there are also parallel events „LaUNCH with MOOCs“ and „Tutorial: Digital Design Thinking using Scene2Model“, as well as presentations of international projects by the organizers and partners of the conference. "As you know, the Faculty of Organization and Informatics is an extremely project-active faculty with more than 35 international scientific projects, so we want to use the opportunity to present the project results of our experts within the framework of CECIIS as well. This is one of the longest-running and most significant conferences in this part of Europe, and we are grateful for this cooperation with our partner institutions," said FOI dean, Prof. Nina Begičević Ređep, Ph.D.
Vice-Rector for International Cooperation and Science of the University of Dubrovnik, Assoc. Prof. Marijana Pećarević, Ph.D. added that the University supported the conference because project cooperation is extremely important to them. "We are glad that colleagues from partner universities and colleges are with us here in Dubrovnik, and we hope that it will be the same next year as well," she added.
The conference was supported by the Ministry of Science and Education and the City of Dubrovnik, and the opening ceremony was attended by the Bord member of the Dubrovnik Development Agency – DURA, Ms. Marina Lazarević and the head of the Administrative Department of Communal Affairs and Environmental Protection of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County, Miho Baće.
The conference is financially supported by Infodom, Oracle, Mobilisis (gold sponsor), Dignet Software (silver sponsor) and Factory X and IGEA group (bronze sponsor).
Below is a photo gallery of the first day of the first conference day.
