The 5th IEEE Hellenic Student and Young Professional Congress took place at Greece’s City of Thousand Colors, Xanthi! Bring industry and academia together, 5th IEEE Hellenic Student and Young Professional Congress was a three-day event, including four technical speeches, eleven IEEE presentations, eight workshops, one students and young professionals expo, two stands for carrier development, as well as many networking sessions and parallel events. You can find more information at the Congress’ official website https://site.ieee.org/hsyp/.

The event was very successful in terms of participation. A total number of 120 participants from student to young professionals and academia and industry representatives from all over Greece and Cyprus took part, with above 20% of them being recent graduates or close to graduation. There were also officers from the IEEE Greece Section and the IEEE Region 8, presenting IEEE activities and external speakers from industry and academia.

The IEEE Hellenic SYP Congress was an excellent opportunity for Student Members & Young Professionals from Greece and Cyprus to get together, exchange knowledge, build relationships, share ideas and have a great time. During the event, the student members were introduced to the Young Professionals and already several graduating students expressed their interest to make the transition to the YP.

The program of the event included the presentation of various IEEE activities and initiatives, as well as technical and soft-skills workshops. The Young Professional local activity spanned into two days. On the first day (November 9th), a presentation of the YPs program was held followed by related workshops. On that evening, a networking session in the form of a formal dinner took place. On the following day (November 10th), a live Q&A session was realized, followed by the IEEE Region 8 Entrepreneurship Initiative Greece Section Semi-Finals Start-Up Pitch. There was also a networking event where scientists from both academia and the industry, as well as IEEE student members and YPs were brought together.

In the end, the overall feedback during the event was very positive, appreciation of the event being mostly excellent and ranging all its aspects from good to excellent, characterizing it as the best SYP event attended. Additionally, after the event we promoted to our participants the survey, created by the Young Professionals. The results obtain where very much in line with the comments gather throughout the event itself and mentioned above.

by Ana Inês Inácio

Have you ever heard about the famous music festival EXIT? No? But for sure you heard about the famous EUROCON conference and even more famous Central European Student and Young Professionals Congress! How about that in 2019 all the three events were organised in the same city, in a single hot July week of crowded young people? That beautiful city was Novi Sad in Serbia, strongly argumenting the given title of youth capital of 2019.

The 18th edition of EUROCON was held from 1st to 4th July and in parallel, 5th edition of CEuSYP was held between 2nd and 4th of July. IEEE Serbia and Montenegro Section was the organiser of EUROCON and IEEE Student Branch Novi Sad was the organiser of CEuSYP. With 108 participants, this edition of CEuSYP was one of the most attended editions. Participants had an opportunity to attend more than 20 different workshops on different technical and soft skills topics, as well as lectures from EUROCON keynote speakers. The first evening of the Congress was IEEE Young Professional & Women in Engineering Meet Up at EUROCON, joined as a part of Multicultural evening for CEuSYP participants. While spending time at the beach, everyone had a unique opportunity to enjoy delicious food from all around Europe and meet each other in a more relaxing environment. Gala dinner was organised on the second night of CEuSYP where participants from both events had a chance to continue networking and exchange knowledge and ideas.

After there days of learning about IEEE and technology, the week was not finished yet. One of the most famous music festivals in Europe, EXIT was started on the 4th of July. Many participants use the chance to visit this, so familiar faces with official CEuSYP T-shirt or EUROCON bag could have been seen mingling everywhere among thousands of people on iconic Petrovaradin fortress.

by Almedin Kavaz