Just under 300 engineering students attended the Engineering the Future career event on Thursday 3 December. Part of the program was the High Tech Career Competition from Innovatiecluster Drachten. Host Bart Brandts Buys talked the parts together and encouraged everyone to start a conversation. 'Don't be shy, say hi!'

ICD

EDU robot

The keynote of this annual career event, organized by the Hanze University Groningen, was provided by Joost Krebbekx of Innovatiecluster Drachten. On the basis of the known at Northern primary schools EDU robot, he explained about the big 5 of high-tech. In a nutshell, he took the students along the Innovatiecluster Drachten companies. Photonis and PerkinElmer's Vision technology. The 3D technology from Stork and Philips. The remote sensor/control technology from Quadient and Horus, among others. The sensor technology from XPar Vision and Ventura Systems. Big data and AI technology from Ziuz and YP Your Partner. And so on. All ICD companies were reviewed, because they all use the latest game-changing techniques or develop them themselves. 

Human and Robot

'Digitization is happening at a 'dazling speed' and Moore's Law is the main driver of this', Krebbekx told the students. For example, people and machines will increasingly collaborate or even merge. "Until wearing an exoskeleton." Krebbekx had plenty of examples. Car manufacturer Volkswagen where 3,000 employees assemble cars together with 1,200 robots. Philips where 1,700 people together with 30 robots produce razors. Variass where 120 employees and 4 cobots work together on the most advanced electronics. But animals will also merge with technology, according to Krebbekx, and will therefore be able to do things that we did not think were possible until recently. He mentioned the spider robot, the fishdrone and the birddrone. And with autonomous transport in Appelscha and Scheemda and robot vacuum cleaners that you can now buy in the store, he showed that the future is close at hand. 

To get used to

After the keynote it was the turn of the students themselves to present themselves to the companies or to hone their skills in several workshops. But because everything took place online, it took some getting used to. 'You simply talk to fewer students than in a normal career market', Remon Schimmel of Quadient explains the limited number of conversations he has had. 'But the students I spoke to were enthusiastic. That is why an online event is an excellent alternative in the current circumstances.'

Secretly

Roderick Dansen from YP Your Partner is also satisfied. 'When we were live, I promoted our company several times in the lobby of the event via the chat function. The result was only 1 interested student. However, the conversation with him was so interesting that I asked him to send his CV. Another student, whom we spoke to on a video call, seems to be a perfect fit for one of the internship positions we have. When the students remained silent, some acquisition was 'secretly' committed. 'Should be possible', says Roderick. "All in all, we didn't go home empty-handed."

Searching

Brank de Vries from Resato continued with two promising students via WhatsApp. 'Unfortunately, the quality of the video conferences was not always good.' Nevertheless, he had nice conversations and was even able to help a few students on their way. 'You notice that students are sometimes still searching and don't have a good idea of what they really want to do. That makes it even more difficult to find an internship.'

Link

Jelte de Haan from Stork spoke to 'quite a few' students and looks back on a successful event. 'We have also scheduled a number of conversations that we will have in the coming week.' During the talks, he mainly paid attention to the ambitions of the students. 'It's great to then make a connection with our ambitions.' In a few conversations, the possibilities for an internship, graduation assignment and a starter position were discussed. 'I thought the students we spoke to were proactive and well prepared. We are now working on the follow-up and expect to be able to fill a number of internship positions.'

Knowing more?

look at the program or visit the website of Engineering the Future.