The official start of Erasmus + KA2 Capacity Building in Higher Education project GEOBIZ was November 15th 2019, but it was inaugurated on February 4th , 2020 in the Rectorate Aula of the University of Zagreb within the frame of the first project workshop – kick-off meeting. More than frothy project consortia participants together with the representatives of the University in Zagreb, Croatian Agency for Mobility and European Union Programs (AMPEU) and other local and international entrepreneurs attended the project launch and after the welcome speeches of the guests of honor, Prof. Damir Boras, PhD (Rector of the University of Zagreb), Antonija Gladović, M.Sc. (Director of the Agency for Mobility and EU Programmes, AMPEU) and Prof. Almin Đapo, PhD (Dean of the Faculty of Geodesy) they received the first information about the project from the project coordinator, Prof Željko Bačić, PhD, from the Faculty of Geodesy, University in Zagreb.
After opening words and skype meeting with our project officer, Ms. Giulia Moro from EACEA. organized within the frame of project, we heard three motivation lectures. Gezim Gjata from Polytechnic university in Tirana talked about challenges and opportunities in academic education with induced by technological revolution, Dragutin Protić from Gilab Ltd., Belgrade gave a lecture on new geospatial service-oriented industry – quest for new professionals and Andrej Lončarić from GDi Ltd., Zagreb talked about technology driven cooperation of business and academia stakeholders in new professionals’ education. The rest of the day was reserved for the presentation of project activities and objectives as well as introducing the project consortium.
The goal of the Erasmus+ Ka2 CBHE programme is to transfer the knowledge and skills of the academic institutions from the EU member countries to partner institutions from nonEU countries. GEOBIZ project intends to achieve this in the next 36 months in the field of geoinformatics. The modern world is based today on spatial information, which means that geoinformatics knowledge how to use such information is necessary.
The remaining two days were filled with several sessions and hard work resulting in allocation of leader and deputy leader tasks of Work packages and Task groups. Definition of work schedule plan was made, and we Launch the first Task groups, and financial management sessions. Project web page and Moodle platform were also presented and launched. Although we worked hard all three days, we also found time for short joint dinner. We look forward to the new challenges ahead of us as part of the project, wish all partners a successful work and see you at the next workshop.
