Public Magazine of BEST 2022

PUBLIC MAGAZINE OF BEST

FROM OUR BOARD

Dear Reader,

The word ‘‘career’’ etymologically derives from the Latin carrus, which indicates a wheeled vehicle or a wagon. The COVID-19 pandemic has put the brakes on the careers of millions of people worldwide and disrupted undergraduate and graduate education. Many students and engineers may feel as if the wheels have well and truly come off their future careers. With social distancing practices imposed, not only Higher Education, but also student organisations have been forced to transition towards an uncharted fully remote-experience format.

BEST, as an organisation, thrives to empower diversity. We see challenges as opportunities for a better path ahead. For us as an organisation, and most importantly as young active volunteers, reaction to challenges wasn’t merely sufficient. After two years of online work, it was high time to return to live experiences. Our belief in the power of youth contribution urged us and all the leaders around us to keep creating youth-led spaces for meaningful conversations, inspiring others and co-creating a better future. As a continuation of the long tradition of BEST, we hope that you will enjoy reading the summary of the past year. It was hard to summarise every experience, joy and tears, hard work and results and all the people in short articles, but we believe that the essence is there.

Being the first year of the new Long-Term Strategic Plan of BEST, there were a lot of challenges ahead of us - challenges which we were excited to take on together with all volunteers, partners, and students. When deciding on our values as the XXXIV International Board, one of the first ones we agreed upon was coherence.

Coherence is achieved when concepts and ideas are connected and flow together smoothly, which is exactly what we tried to envelop with our goals for the following year. By critically assessing the actions taken in the previous years and setting the basis for achieving the longterm strategic goals, we aimed to ensure the continuity in all the crucial areas of our organisation, but also to support the much needed changes. Even at a distance, we aimed to train the next generations of technical students while offering an authentic, real-life, and, hopefully, inspiring learning journey. In the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, aviator and author of “The Little Prince”: ‘‘If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.’’

We can use several metaphors to depict the students’ careers, from a wheeled vehicle to a ship, or the aircraft flown by the Little Prince. Whatever the vehicle, it is time to turn on the engine. Deep down within each of us, there’s a flame that may have gone dormant, that can be fanned or ignited if it has blown out. This is the flame of curiosity, the flame of wonder, of awe, of all the things that make you want to learn something more tomorrow than you know today.

We hope that the following pages will encourage you to go beyond your boundaries, embrace the uncertainty of doing work that matters and show up with something generous. This Magazine might not change the world, but we hope this will be a spark that will ignite the flame that changing the world is possible, starting with ourselves. One tiny flame could kindle so many other flames; one tiny flame could set afire a whole world. Yours truly, The XXXIV International Board - The Flame

Antonios Bikas President

Alexander Kadoglou

Antonis : The people that are involved in this organisation create an environment which can very rarely be found. The efforts and passion of each person are what drive me to devote my own time to leading and inspiring everyone to become better versions of themselves. This year became a big milestone for my personal development.

Rita: Being part of the International Board is a rewarding and life-changing experience!

By being the Treasurer I was responsible for the financial management of the organisation. This has proven to be an area that I particularly like and wish to pursue in my future career. Apart from many skills that you can develop, you learn a lot about yourself. I’m proud of being part of a Board that despite mistakes and many challenges still achieved most of the initial goals set. Most importantly, I’m grateful to have shared this experience with such a team, resilient, powerful and humble!

Perrine: Becoming the Secretary of BEST was unexpected for me, but it was a challenge I will never regret! This experience made me feel the strength of our network and the involvement of our volunteers more than ever. Within the International Board, I discovered how to use some of my own personal traits intelligently, by quickly finding my place in a true team. I was proud and honoured to be one of the leaders of an organisation that promotes European values and mutual empowerment.

Alekos: BEST is a community, a small society, if I may. In this society, I’ve felt included, welcomed and heard. That feeling was what kept me going. It also gave me the reason I decided to become a candidate for the International Board; ensuring that as many volunteers as possible have a similar experience with our network. Of course, this experience had its tough moments, but I came to learn every hardship makes you more resilient, brave and more honest.

Evelina: Being part of the International Board was an intense and unique experience. When I was deciding to run for the position of Vice-President for Projects the main thing that motivated me was to make this organisation a bit better by using all the skills I had gained by being a part of it and utilising my best qualities. It is quite demanding to be a leader of such an organisation and last year it was the first time after a long pandemic and a series of only online events that we managed to get back to meeting live and having live events. I am glad I got to experience all of that and can say that I contributed to the development of BEST, even a little bit. At the end of the day, the most rewarding part is getting to meet new people and creating a strong bond with the six other people of this Board that I had with me.

Anja: When thinking about running for the International Board, services were always at the core of the organisation in my viewpoint, and something I knew I could leave an impact on. It is oftentimes described as the most overloaded position, and I would say this goes for all the positions if you work alone. Vice-President for Services is a position highly dependent on others - on all the services coordinators, R&D and sales and marketing experts, and most importantly dependent on collaboration within the Board itself. A year ago I didn’t know how much I was blessed with the team I couldn’t choose. I didn’t know what to expect and I was closed off to this experience. A new me emerged thanks to the Flame, and I want to thank each one of you for being my emotional and professional support, for the growth and opportunity to learn from you and each other, and most importantly for the 7 of us sticking to the end for each other. It is rare, and I will forever cherish all the ups and downs we shared during these months.

Panos: BEST is a simulation of what you will face in the outside world as an adult. But it’s not only that, it’s an idea, and what makes it that special is that everyone perceives that idea in a different way. It was a tough year, in which mistakes happened for sure, however, I wouldn’t change a single day of this wonderful experience for anything. I am glad I had the opportunity to develop myself, work on my vision, and create a unique family with six individuals that circumstances brought together.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the fourth edition of the Public Magazine of BEST. Through the pages of this Magazine, you will have the opportunity to get a closer look at how the past year was for us, understand the projects and events that we worked on, and general concepts in the organisation.

Despite the pandemic that has changed our lives and the way we work or think, we want to show you how BEST is bringing us together with every opportunity. We are motivated to be involved and take on challenging positions in the organisation, which helps us develop more than we think or expect. At the same time, we support and encourage less experienced people, so they are not afraid of doing incredible things.

Many of us wouldn’t be who we are today without the projects we worked on, events in which we participated or trips around Europe where we met new people. Time passes, but these experiences stay with us for a lifetime.

Creating this Magazine wouldn’t have been possible without the effort of many BESTies in the past few months. You were amazing in every possible way! I would especially like to thank my team, the Public Magazine Crew, who dedicated their time to collecting materials, writing articles and designing pages. They are no other than:

Roberta La Barbera

Assistant Editor

Ziya İpek

Zeynep Aylin Yüksel

Miruna Lustina

1987

attend an exchange which was called “International Week”. The idea to create an association of technology students was born. Two years later, what we today call the Board of European Students of Technology, also known as BEST, was founded and the first General Assembly of the organisation was already part of our history. For the past 31 years, BEST has been connecting students of technology from all over Europe. Now, we are composed of 88 Local BEST Groups (LBGs) from 31 countries.

BEST works to ensure that students are able to apply their full potential in a culturally diverse environment and, to achieve this, we constantly strive to find new and disparate opportunities for the development of students of technology.

Following the vision of “Empowered diversity”, we provide complementary education, educational involvement and career support through our services, adding value to formal education and creating a unique opportunity to learn through experience. That’s how the mission of our organisation, “Developing students’’, reaches its full meaning, by giving students the chance to study and gain both practical knowledge and self-improvement, all in a multicultural environment.

A small group of technology students gathered in Stockholm back in

to

We provide complementary education to the students by integrating the one that our universities already offer, bringing knowledge ever closer to the students in need from all over Europe. Our most notable services on this are BEST Courses, gathering students from several different backgrounds but also the European BEST Engineering Competition (EBEC) pyramid, which includes many local, national or regional rounds and EBEC Final.

BEST offers itself as a platform for educational involvement. To do this, we gather students, the academy and the industry’s input on how education should be improved, so that solutions can be proposed to Higher Education institutions. Every year we focus on different issues and we are proposing solutions through our papers at big conferences.

Lastly, BEST acts as a network between the industry, academy and students, so opportunities for collaboration can be found. We provide career support to our students so they can get closer to their future careers.

Experiencing international involvement, students lower their cultural barriers and learn to respect and understand different ways of thinking. All of our work is done for students and by students.

Through the engagement of our members, we provide services that aim to broaden the horizons of European students of technology. Our actions are inspired by our values. Through flexibility, we are open to quickly responding to changes. We always aim for improvement by continuously raising the standards in everything we do. We value friendship through building good personal relations and supporting teamwork. We strive to help students become more internationally minded by learning and having fun in every area where we exist. That, however, is not where we stop, since we believe in continuous improvement and growth. We will, for the years to come.

Providing BEST services to over 1.200.000 students from all around Europe wouldn’t be possible without highly motivated and devoted BEST members. By organising events and actively participating in the organisation, our members are able to gain all these skills that are relevant for students of technology. We are trained to be able to take decisions on the spot, manage projects efficiently and work under pressure with strict deadlines. However, the most important things we gain as members are memories and experiences while working in a multicultural environment. For us, the members, every single corner of Europe is our home, and we are a huge family because of the unlimited memories we are creating with every single member of this organisation.

DEPARTMENTS

Competitions Department

Francesco Marino, BEST Turin

The purpose of the Competitions Department is to provide support and develop competitions and its services according to the needs of BEST as well as to offer a quality service to our stakeholders. Furthermore, the department aims to collect data and knowledge about Competitions organised by the Local BEST Groups in order to create a flow of information that could allow all the LBGs to organise their own competitions based on the model used by others while customising the service for their students.

Design Department

Arnaldo Neto, BEST Porto

The Design Department exists to use its expertise in different aspects of graphic design to provide BEST with all the design materials it needs. These needs can come from other departments or from internal events, which oftentimes leads to collaboration between DD and other departments. Internally, we try to foster the best environment possible so all its members feel welcome and inspired to create.

Educational Involvement Department

Corporate Relations Department

Mariia Kovalchuk, BEST Kyiv

The Corporate Relations Department supports the Treasurer in providing the financial resources for BEST International through corporate fundraising, in order to work and reach the goals of the organisation. In my own words, I would describe it as a place where our lovely fundraisers build and develop strong partnerships with our future partners in order to keep our organisation sustainable.

Vladica Pasic, BEST Novi Sad

The purpose of EduID is to increase students’ awareness and involvement in educational matters, gather students’ input on educational matters and disseminate it to relevant higher education stakeholders. We are achieving this by working on an Educational Involvement programme, Local Educational Support, and contributing to external projects and conferences.

Vivaldi Department

Leonor Gomes, BEST Porto

The Vivaldi Department focuses on developing and supporting events described in the Vivaldi Handbook. Additionally, it helps LBGs organise BEST Courses and makes sure we are providing a service with quality for our stakeholders.

Grants Department

Stathis Vezyris, BEST Chania

Grants Department is one of the nine international departments of BEST. According to our statement of purpose, our main role is to cooperate with funders in order to ensure financial support for BEST through grants. Currently, the activities of the Grants Department focus on three areas: Research of new grant calls, preparation and submission of grant applications and transfer of knowledge regarding grants to local groups.

Public Relations Department

Codrin-Valentin Rusu, BEST Iasi

Public Relations Department ensures the external presence of our organisation by promoting our services to students across Europe. Working closely with the other international departments, but most frequently with the Design Department, we have one big goal: to make BEST known and desired by students and partners. On the other hand, we ensure that our volunteers are well prepared for this task, so we provide them with high-quality training and even personal mentors, through the internal programmes that were developed and improved over the past years.

Information Technology Department

Simon Petit, BEST Liège

The Information Technology Department is tasked with the development, maintenance and security of the IT systems used and needed by BEST. We work to support the organisation as a whole all year long for its daily needs, but we are also occasionally involved in the IT part of global events such as the General Assembly. We recently finished a big transition to new servers. Our current focus is to build a new Private Area, our internal portal, using modern technologies. Nonetheless, the maintenance of what already exists is a part of our work not to be neglected.

Training Department

Clara Höll, BEST Erlangen

The Training Department, also known as TiGro, makes sure that the skill-based needs of both the local groups and the international bodies of BEST are met, so the organisation as a whole can run smoothly. The department creates opportunities for our volunteers to attend sessions that are then prepared and delivered by trainers. It also provides chances for the members of the training community to further develop themselves in this field.

WHAT CHANGED THIS YEAR

2021, the XXXIV International Board of BEST gathered to discuss the state of the organisation, the matters concerning it and the common vision for BEST. This culminated in the creation of the first draft of the Annual Action Plan for the year 2021/2022, which aimed to push the organisation further in areas that are crucial for BEST to be tackled this year.

This Annual Action Plan was written with a twofold intention in mind; inspire the organisation to take action, and bring us, as volunteers, closer in order to create an even more welcoming and supportive environment.

At the beginning of the year, the Data Centralisation project was launched, aimed at first to analyse and optimise the data gathering processes in the organisation. Mid-project, the direction was moved to investigating and defining the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for the organisation internally and our services externally, which led to the creation of KPI Implementation document in June. The work will be continued with the newly established department in BEST - Data Analysis Department. KPIs are a crucial part of proper strategic planning and leadership, and as such, will continue to be implemented in BEST.

The idea for merging the work of Research & Development Working Group and Statistics Working Group began during the Board Summer Meeting, and was briefly discussed during the first half of the year. During the Winter International Project, the idea was solidified as much as the outcome of the session related to the future of data in BEST. With this, the Vice President for Projects began preparing official documents and the proposal for establishing this new department, the first new department in BEST since 2015!

BEST is a service-providing organisation and therefore, it is important to continuously improve our services by constantly evaluating and testing out new changes we can later implement permanently in them. Since our Members are the ones primarily executing our services and connecting BEST as a whole with our stakeholders, a cooperation framework in which they can freely test new concepts should be established. Vice President for Services and Vice President for Local Group Support had a goal of aiming to use data of local services from past projects (e.g. Events Recognition Project) in order to identify potential improvement points and test elaborate and deliberate changes with the help of the relevant international bodies. With this collaboration, a new official document “BEST Service Portfolio” defining what a service is, what services BEST offers and how new services can be introduced to BEST (both top-down and bottom-up) was voted on at the Spring General Assembly.

During Board Summer Meeting Thessaloniki

As a large international organisation, there is a constant flow of information happening between Members and different International Bodies. Over the past few years, there were efforts to adjust the communication towards our Members to the essential and relevant information with the creation of an internal promotion concept. In order to do so the organisation requires an efficient flow system. This system should be defined by all parties involved with the aim to assess the absolutely necessary information that our Members need. To address this problem, the Vice President for Human Resources and Vice President for Local Group Support worked together and launched the Internal Promotion Concept, which optimised the information delivery process within the network.

During the year, well-being was a focus point for the XXXIV International Board. By launching a Code of Conduct project, the very first Code of Conduct was created and voted in July. This means that all of our Members support the establishment of an agreement within the organisation that will complement the stance of BEST towards alarming behaviours.

When it comes to BEST’s Service Portfolio, the Vice President for Services initiated a review of the Educational Involvement Programme, which was worked upon during EduID SIM in Ghent during May. Furthermore, BEST Courses as a service were reviewed as well during Vivaldi SIM in March. Together with the Competitions Department, the database of the hackathons in the network was updated and discussions were started on what concept of hackathons our Members prefer. During the year, two services were retired - the first being BEST Virtual Summit in December, and second being BEST Career Day in June.

A new service, however, has emerged and BEST will test its very first Innovative Event next Spring. In June, the host for the Final Round of Artificial Intelligence Battleground (AIBG), a 24-hour hackathon on AI, was selected.

In terms of finances, the restructuring of General Assemblies’ Official Opening Days was started in November and was implemented for the Official Opening for Spring GA. Additionally, BEST Career Centre, as the main activity in this field, needed to be revised from its core, which is described in more detail later in the magazine. On a parallel step, due to the dynamic changes in our services and reach, the pricing system was revised. The model chosen was the Value Based Pricing Model, in a combination with the Competitive Pricing Model which has been implemented for new pricing of BEST Career Centre and others.

In the aspect of Services the XXXIV International Board, believed a lot in the importance of the Local Events both in terms of Service provision but also in the sense of maintaining the activity and sustainability of our Groups. On that aspect, the Event Recognition Working Group was established in order to continue working toward the direction that was given from the XXXIII International Board.

REGIONAL DIVISION

Diversity

Following the vision of BEST, “Empowered Diversity”, our regions thrive to gather Local BEST Groups from multiple countries with various profiles. Diversity can strengthen the region itself as it creates valuable cultural exchanges between our volunteers.

Accessibility

This is taken into account when we think about the people traveling to different events. We have to ensure that the Local BEST Groups of a region can easily be connected to each other by low-price and short journeys, without too many constraints.

Size

The number of Local BEST Groups in one region is usually between 8 and 10. This way, the Regional Advisor can provide support effectively and equally to all its Local BEST Groups. Balance Finally, in each region, there are Local BEST Groups with a higher and lower amount of resources. It can help in the process of sharing good practices and make all Local BEST Groups develop together.

Lucija

Bogdan

BEST Zagreb

Lejla Karabeg

BEST Mostar

Ricardo Terol Lauder

BEST Madrid

Elif Nur Çalışkan

BEST Istanbul Bogazici

George Damopoulos

BEST Athens

What are your expectations about the following year?

Aggelos : To see a united organisation that fully takes advantage of both external and internal opportunities. Additionally, I would like to create nice memories and friendships that will guide me through the years.

Luna : I expect this year to be full of surprises, which makes it all the more exciting. If I can voice a wish, then I hope we will have brought the organisation closer together. The main goal is, of course, to leave it better than when we started.

Stathis: To make money! Hahaha no, I am kidding even though it is the wish of every Treasurer, to be honest. As a person usually I don’t make high expectations in order to be able to enjoy everything at its maximum, but if I could name some I would say to try to meet new people, experience new adventures and have a great time all around Europe.

Leo : I believe it’s going to be a year full of growth through challenges, new things and new horizons opening up to all of us. I am excited for all of it, especially going through it with my fellow Boardies, meeting new people and all for everything else that might come on the way.

Simon : I expect BEST to find its footing again and propel itself in the post-pandemic era!

Anya : I want volunteers to become more mindful about their actions, responsibilities, and opportunities they can experience in BEST. There are tons of unexplored and inspiring things, and the Organisation itself is a platform for innovations with trial and error and a safe space.

Dunja : I expect it to be a year full of challenges, out of which not only I and the Constellation will learn a lot and grow, but the whole organisation! I am expecting a year full of collaborations, ideas and discussions with both international bodies and LBGs, in order to develop our Services and other aspects of BEST.

What made you decide to be a candidate for the Board?

Aggelos : Taking into consideration the critical situation after the pandemic, I decided to run for the Board to provide actions, solutions and to “bring” a new bright side to the organisation.

Luna : I like working as a team and I truly love BEST. I believe in the potential our organisation has and want to help bring it closer to reaching it. This is also truly a growing opportunity for myself, after my years of local experience I felt that taking this big step was the right thing to do to further challenge myself.

Stathis: A combination of multiple factors I would say. I would consider the 3 most important out of all them being the love I have for BEST, the fact that I want to see myself being constantly improved and my passion about finances. I was sure before running that bringing those 3 together would enable me to have a great time as a boardie and until now I am happy to confirm it!

Leo : It was quite a long internal discussion before the decision was made from my side, I wasn’t expecting to do it at all this year. However, many things have aligned, many things happened and call it fate or call it a successful opportunity hunteventually I had made a decision to be a candidate for the Board this year. I knew things would be challenging, I knew there were so many things for me to learn - and I am so happy that I was given the opportunity to lead the organisation while learning because I believe that being a leader is all about that.

Simon : I wanted to bring change to the General Assemblies of BEST along with an improvement of our governance practices. Plus, for me, it was this year or never!

Anya : War in my country, uncertainty about the future connected to the war and desire to still have a community that might support me in hard times dealing with my well-being. In addition, I truly crave to help the organisation stay sustainable and evolve in all possible matters.

Dunja : The heart of our organisation are services we provide, and none of them would be possible without listening to and working closely with both our volunteers and stakeholders. Therefore, after having an active role in our services for almost 4 years, I wanted to take a step further and lead the organisation to an even brighter future, while “Reaching for the stars”.

What would you like to learn from this experience?

Aggelos : Learn how to successfully utilise every opportunity that is given and also to understand more the key actions that are making an international organisation thrive.

Luna : Learn to correctly prioritise my time while working in an online environment with people from all over Europe. Communicate my needs and delegate when necessary. Most of all I believe that facing new challenges can teach you a lot about yourself and who you are.

Stathis: I would say that I hope this experience will enable me to better understand different perspectives over a matter. Being in the board brings you in situations where 7 people with 7 different backgrounds (cultural ones, working ones etc) representing 7 different areas have to take decisions that will be the most beneficial for the organisation and if you think over it a bit more it’s magnificent how this procedure can grow you as a person!

Leo : Honestly - whatever comes. I want to leave my mark in the history of BEST, I want to leave something behind, and, when it comes to a bit more selfish reasons, I really want this experience to help me direct my life into a certain direction. I do believe being a member of the International Board, as challenging as it is, opens a lot of new doors and opportunities. Apart from that, I want to learn through successes, and I want to learn through failures because I am certain there will be plenty of both! :)

Simon : It would be great if I could get used to handling so much responsibility and taking decisions for the interest of a large group of people. I also would like to increase my ability to work with a large number of people, all widely different from one another.

Anya : Become more organised, learn to delegate, trust people, and be honest with my time capacity. Because obviously, I cannot do everything at once, even though I wish to.

Dunja : I would like to learn how to even better balance my BEST and private time, and be successful in both of those aspects of my life. Except that, I am looking forward to learning more from other people through all the collaborations we will have throughout the year!

BEST COURSES

BEST Courses are educational events organised by every LBG at least once every 2 years.

They usually last about 10 days and during that time 20-30 international students have the chance to participate in lectures and social and cultural activities. The lectures are given by the university’s teaching staff or by experts from companies. At the end of the course, students are examined in order to evaluate their success.

There are three different types of Courses based on the area of skill development. These three types are BEST Courses on Technology, BEST Courses on Career Related Skills and BEST Courses on Applied Engineering. Regardless of their type, they are ideal for students who seek professional development but are also eager to make new friendships while widening their social circle and networking with people of similar interests. The main goal of BEST Courses is to increase the knowledge and develop skills of the participants, but also to help them achieve an international mindset through the environment that enables cultural transfer.

Despite the challenges that post Covid era brings, there were 13 Courses in Spring ‘22 and 45 in Summer ‘22. Furthermore, expectations of students were met with minimal evaluation grades above 75 (out of 100) and overall positive impressions. Here are some testimonials from this year’s participants:

“Thank you so much for organizing this great event. I will remember it for the rest of my life.”

“Great combination of learning and fun!”

“Really interesting lessons and academic activities. Amazing people and excellent organisation”

“It was very well organised and enabled the participants to connect with different people across Europe.”

These were only some of the impressions of students who experienced the perks of being part of BEST Courses. With all those benefits that participants have, it is no surprise that the number of applications in each Spring and Summer season of 2022 was up to five folds higher than the number of places available.

BEST Courses

• Complement your knowledge in different fields of study

• Visit companies, industrial plants and research centres

• Take part in case studies

• Follow interesting classes covering many different technology fields, economics, marketing and management

• Receive ECTS credits in recognised coursescourses

EBEC Concept

EBEC is a 3-level, team-based competition. Students can participate in either one of 2 categories – Innovative Design and Case Study. Both categories are based on interdisciplinary tasks developed for students of technology in order to give them the opportunity to use the theoretical knowledge gained during their studies. The winning teams from the Local Rounds progress to the National or Regional Rounds, and the winning teams from there move onto the Final Round of EBEC.

The Local Rounds of EBEC are organised by Local Groups of BEST. for the students of their respective Universities. The students participate in teams of 4. The National or Regional Rounds of EBEC are the next step in the competition for the winning teams from the Local Rounds of EBEC. Winning teams gather from multiple universities together to compete.

EBEC Categories

The Innovative Design category puts the participants’ creativity and knowledge to the test! In this category, participants have the task to develop new technological designs or improve upon existing ones. During their professional

presentation, the participants demonstrate the technical, social, environmental, and economic impact of their design.

The Case Study category is a theoretical problem-solving challenge that tasks participants to analyse, research, deliberate, test, and present a solution that fits a real-world scenario based on realistic resources within a limited time with no actual construction of a device or assembling of materials.

“Memories might be invisible to the eyes, but they can always be felt by the heart.”

“When I close my eyes for a moment and think about the whole EBEC journey that I’ve been experiencing for the past year, my head gets flooded with hundreds of memories and my heart gets filled with emotions. I am proud of the people I’ve met, had the pleasure to work with, and seen developing through this experience. I feel grateful for the greatest and most rewarding experience I’ve ever had. But at the same time, I feel very sad and melancholic because it came to the end.

Even though I can talk about it for days, I will try to give you a chance to live a bit of EBEC through the following paragraphs.

My journey started back in July 2021 when my fellow teammates decided to put their trust in me to be the one leading them to the stars. We had more than 60 EBEC Rounds ahead of us with more than 3000 students taking part in them. Our only goal was to make this EBEC story

Dunja Olbina, BEST Belgrade EBEC Programme Coordinator 2021-2022

an experience everyone will remember. We spent many hours working together, and even though we couldn’t see each other in person all the time, we still managed to become a Team that everyone wishes they could have. We knew that only united we can make history. That we need to show respect to everyone in order to ensure their growth. We knew that we’ll be the ones designing the future until the very end and that for that we needed innovative ideas and approaches.

In the end, we made it. After more than 11 months we reached the Final Round of EBEC, which took place in Zagreb. We got a chance to see more than a hundred students from all across Europe competing to make history. We felt the competitive spirit and saw how participants shaped their brilliant ideas into innovative solutions. We saw the amazing things that we can all make, together. We saw that all the efforts that we’ve put into organising the final stage of EBEC were really worth it. We made great friendships, we had a lot of fun, we improved through this experience, and we learned from each other.

The awards ceremony and the feelings that were flooding my whole body during my final speech and saying “The XIII edition of EBEC is now officially closed” were the ones I will never forget. I will always gladly close my eyes and let my heart bring back those memories, and I will always be excited for all the reunions that are awaiting us in the future.

EBEC has always been about people, and will always be. The greatest experiences will always come when you get out of your comfort zone and dare to dream.”

“Being in the EBEC Team is one of my greatest achievements and the best adventure. I had an opportunity to meet and work with the most incredible BESTies from all over Europe. We did it all to deliver an exceptional Final round of the EBEC Pyramid. When I saw the Final Round happening, I felt an amazing sense of fulfilment. Seeing people from all around Europe, competing throughout the day, challenged by various tasks, and finally presenting made me feel envious of them. I also wanted to participate and have as much fun as them. In the end, I got the opportunity to participate in one task together with a great team made of BESTies. Even though we weren’t really competing we still felt like winners afterwards. The amazing atmosphere of friendship during social activities in the evenings made me feel at home. It will always be one of my best memories!”

Lukasz Sobon, BEST AGH Kraków (EBEC Team)

“Being a co-organiser on EBEC Final 2022 in Zagreb was one of the most fulfilling activities of my BEST career. I spent ten days in beautiful Zagreb, helping out with the organisation of the event and met so many beautiful people and new friends. Being present during the whole event and watching as it progressed until the very end was an incredible experience. As a coorganiser you get to interact with the core team, members of the organising LBG, international participants, and you even get some free time for sightseeing. I would definitely recommend applying as a co-organiser to the first event that fits your schedule!”

Matko Matic, BEST Leuven (Coorganiser)

What is BEST Career Centre?

BE ST Career Centre (BCC) aims at providing an impactful career support service to European students, by not only disseminating career and study opportunities within the BEST network but also by creating an international environment that effectively brings students and companies closer.

The Journey of creating the BCC concept BC C, previously called Minerva, has been provided to students since 1998. During the past few years, a decrease in the interest of students for this online set of tools was noticed, which motivated a revision of the concept. During the year 2021/2022, relevant and knowledgeable people in the BCC Programme, R&D Working Group, Corporate Relations and Public Relations Department gathered together to evaluate the concept, analyse the performed market research and kick-start its revision.

The reports from the Short Intensive Meeting were passed along to the Research and Development Working Group, which started designing a new service, taking into consideration the needs of BEST’s stakeholders (Students, Partners and Universities) and the needs of LBGs, without disregarding our own structure’s strengths and limitations.

We aspire to make BCC a valuable Programme not only for external students but also for the members of BEST, who can experience all these international opportunities, including mentoring programmes, counselling activities, a career guide and a CV database.

Mentoring Programmes

BCC Mentoring Programmes are here to help students navigate their career paths in a strategic manner, where they consider their motivations and passions. The mentors’ role is to ask questions, listen and guide the students towards finding their own answers, starting from a point of self-discovery. They will share their own experiences and offer invaluable tips, inspiring the mentees to make decisions, take risks and build their own fulfilling future.

Our offers are: • Mentorship • Internships • Job shadowing

BEST Alumni Network

As BEST has historically been present in over 100 universities in 34 countries, its Alumni are a community of more than 8000 individuals spread all over the world. BEST Alumni Network (BAN) is the official organisation to promote and facilitate networking and collaboration among Alumni of BEST.

BAN partnered up with BCC to offer a 4-month Mentoring Programme. Starting on the 15th of October, 36 mentors are available for more than 40 different fields and topics, from engineering to management, passing on all the hot career-related topics.

October to January https://www.bestalumni.net/

Stanley Black & Decker

Headquartered in the USA, Stanley Black & Decker provides tools and innovative solutions for builders, protectors, makers and explorers since 1843. As a global leader in industrial solutions, they provide infrastructure systems that reinforce roads, build bridges and even deliver energy.

Stanley Black & Decker offered a Development Journey to the winners of EBEC Final 2022. The eight mentees had the opportunity to be guided by company leaders according to their areas of expertise and motivation.

September to December https://www.stanleyblackanddecker.com/

Counselling Activities

Through career counselling, BCC aims to bring awareness to students about opportunities that they can have for their career life, either currently or in the future, how to be prepared for them and how to balance work and personal life, mostly in the last years of studies or even after they finish.

Our offers are:

• Webinars

• Masterclasses

• 1 on 1 sessions

• Group sessions

Career Guide

By subscribing to the career newsletter, students can receive job and study opportunities abroad.In addition to these opportunities, students can get information about webinars, competitions and other career-related opportunities from our partners. Students can also expect some relevant and useful tips and tricks on this subject.

https://best.eu.org/career/welcome.jsp

CV database

By adding their CVs to our database, students can boost their career prospects, having companies know their areas of interest, expertise and professional profiles.

BCC is here to make a positive impact on European students, helping them feel empowered and more confident to face the challenges of the business and industrial world.

BEST SYMPOSIA ON EDUCATION

BSE Ljubljana 2022 September

Irem Yılmaz, BEST Izmir: I had been in BEST for 5 years and, have never been in an external event as a participant till BSE Ljubljana 2022. I didn’t know that it would be worth waiting 5 years to apply BSEs or BEST Courses.

BSE was one of the best experiences I had in my life. The reason I applied was simple; to go out of my comfort zone, try something new, be part of discussions and enjoy my time. That 9 days were more than all my expectations. Putting aside all the amazing people I met at the event, I am also amazed by the content of the BSE. During the pandemic, students suddenly needed to be adapted to asynchronous and online education. There was no time for most countries’ education systems to be evaluated, tested adapted in order to continue ensuring the best possible way. After 2 years, I believe students started to implement changes and adapt our system to take preventive initiatives on our education system to be adaptable to every struggle we might face in the future.

By being part of BSE, the most intense feeling I had was feeling heard, and taken into consideration. Every idea of any participant gave was considered, discussed, brainstormed, and enhanced. At the end of the event, we could see all these discussions and topics on the different concepts each participant created from zero. I believe being part of the change was the highlight of the event and 13 students from different cultures and educational backgrounds made this. I am proud of all of us for being amazing observers, open to discussions, respectful and open-minded about every idea.

I can not think of how I can explain my gratitude to BEST Ljubljana and also to co-organisers from BEST Maribor, 13 participants and the Content Team for giving me the space to discover myself once again by making this event possible! Special thanks to all sLOVEnian organisers who made me fall in love with their country.

Lastly, Pošiljam vam objeme in poljubčke <3

Ariel, Wroclaw BSE’22 Contem Team: The BSE in Poland is for me so far one of the BEST experiences that I can highlight in my CV. I worked with an amazing team, and I really appreciated the opportunity to talk about such an interesting subject which is Asynchronous Education in Europe. I love the fact that Students can influence decisions concerning Education. It was an amazing and enriching journey for me. And during this event, I also had the opportunity to facilitate sessions for the first time, and I enjoyed it :) Carolina Janeiro, Ljubljana’s BSE’22 Coordinator: One of my biggest passions is Educational Involvement, spreading that passion through others, makes me happy. For me, that is what a BSE truly is. Coordinating BSE Ljubljana was a roller coaster of emotions and many working hours, but at the end of the day, completely worth it. I met amazing people along the way, and that had a huge impact on my journey. Seeing participants excited to discuss their own education future and being actively involved in their education, was for sure a highlight.

In BEST we mention many times that we can’t do anything alone, the BSE spirit portrays just that. This event would never have been possible without my amazing content team, for whom I’m so grateful for. However, what makes BSE’s so special to me is the fact that they are made by the people that participate in them. Seeing the concepts that the participants achieved in Asynchronous Education was inspiring. Thank to every single one that was involved in this event, we did it our way <3

BEST VIRTUAL SUMMIT 2.0

The main objectives used to measure the event’s success were the number of participants, the engagement of participants in each session, and the number of partners/ high-profile speakers. The KPIs regarding participants were not completely achieved and potentially the service is being untrendy to BEST’s target group.

The pilot edition of BEST Virtual Summit in 2020 was a huge success! Especially when looking at the financial sustainability of the event. As a follow-up, the second edition of BVS was kick-started by the XXXIII International Board, and the Treasurer, Mina Mitrovic, was appointed as interim Coordinator. Following the elections of the XXXIV Board, coordination was handed over to Anja Macan, Vice-President for Services. Anja had the difficult task to establish proper project management of the Summit despite many delays from the previous year. Luckily, fundraising was on track thanks to the work led by Dunja Olbina. Anja sent out the call for the rest of the team so that the FR and PR Coordinators, elected a few months prior, can start working in a team.

The organisational team as of July 2021 consisted of:

• Anja Macan, BVS Coordinator;

• Dunja Olbina, FR Coordinator;

• Oana Strafalogea, PR Coordinator;

• Rita Reis, Speakers & Content Responsible;

• Teodora Sisakovic, Design Responsible;

• Viktoria Kalinina, Networking and Participants Responsible.

BEST Virtual Summit, as a potential new service, aimed to bring innovation to BEST, especially when the environment was shifting online at a rapid speed. The Summit’s focus is to create an environment where hot and relevant topics can be discussed, and with those elements providing Career Support and Complementary Education.

The Event programme was a listed below:

• Keynote by Tamara Tirjak (BAN) on Diversity and Inclusion Work Environment;

• Keynote by Neil Milliken (Vice President Group Accessibility & Digital Inclusion at Atos) on Treating Exclusion Like Pollution - A sustainability led approach to Accessibility;

• Keynote by Ayla White (Senior Director of HR at Rocket Insights at Dept Agency) on Diversity, Equality & Inclusion;

• Keynote by Alfredo Soeiro (Secretary General at AECEF) on Engineering qualifications and competences acquired by graduates;

• Keynote by a Josephine Hubert (Celonis) on Diversity and Sustainability;

• Keynote by Luis Amaro (Head of University Partnerships & Veteran Initiatives at MThree) on DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IN THE WORKPLACEUnderstanding Diversity & Inclusion as a modern business practice;

• Keynote by Lara

Gärber (Diversity & Inclusion Manager of Europe at ABInBev) on D&I Strategies;

• Keynote by Lily Serreau Baum (CEO at CHRP) on What is the role of NGOs in achieving a diverse and inclusive environment?;

• Workshop by Nathalie Marie Pérez Sievers (Team Lead Recruiting DE at Dept Agency) on Raising awareness of unconscious bias;

• Keynote by Dirk Bochar (FEANI) on The European Engineers’ Federation –Challenges for future Engineers;

• NGOs Table (ESTIEM, EESTEC, CFES and BEST) on discussing Experience of NGOs in achieving a diverse and inclusive environment.

We had 6 partners, AbinBEV and Celonis with a personalised package, Dept Agency with the A package, and MThree Corporate Consulting with the C package. Overall, BVS had amazing results with fundraising, as well as allowed innovation in our fundraising methods. However, due to other factors in the service, partner satisfaction was quite low.

In conclusion, BEST Virtual Summit as a service has great potential. The facts stand in favour of that statement as we see large interest from partners to participate. This means that the service can be financially sustainable and other competitors who are doing similar conferences are able to actually attract people to attend them. On the other hand, it is evident that BEST currently does not have the knowledge on how to organise conferences and understanding of what makes them unique and attractive, and how to sell them to people we are closest with — students. Until BEST is ready and able to dedicate significant human resources to research and properly establish strategies for all the fields connected to BVS, it does not make sense to continue doing mediocre work with BVS, damaging both the brand of BVS and BEST itself. It is evident that BVS, same as all the other services that do not have a clear connection to the Members of BEST, is unable to have a proper reach to our stakeholders. If future editions were to happen, this aspect needs to be ideated from scratch and revised to fit in BEST’s structure at all levels.

We do acknowledge that a lot of work, effort, and dedication has been put into developing BVS. We’d like to thank both the 1st BVS Team and the 2nd BVS Team — who worked relentlessly before, during, and after the Summit — for their contribution to the development of our services. We are also proud of BEST showing its flexibility to be the incubator for new ideas and being open to testing out new concepts. BVS might have been ahead of its time, or just beyond the current capacity and capabilities of BEST to properly execute. Nevertheless, BVS was a journey that showed true team spirit!

Laila

The General Assembly is BEST’s highest decision-making body. Twice per year, it gathers representatives from all Local BEST Groups to discuss the state of our association as well as to take important decisions. Such decisions include the election of a new Board, the approval of the association’s budget, changes in membership and changes in our regulations. At every edition, we have around 150 volunteers representing their Local BEST Groups, international departments or projects, extra delegates, or representatives of other NGOs. The event lasts over a week, and organising such an event in a live format is very challenging.

Over the past year, BEST managed to gather its representatives both in person and online. Between the 12th and 18th of November 2021, more than 150 volunteers gathered in Belgium to participate in the Autumn General Assembly organised by BEST Ghent and Leuven. The following event, our Spring General Assembly was held online and it took place between the 23rd of April and the 1st of May 2022.

Despite having different environments, we managed to offer the attendees many opportunities to contribute to BEST, develop themselves and network. For all the organisers of the event, it was a very fulfilling experience, and it was very motivating to see the engagement and drive of all attendees.

What makes our General Assemblies different is the Official Opening Day. During that day, we have presentations from our partners and opportunities for students to interact with them and receive advice for their careers from professionals.

On 21st of April 2022, the BEST Conference: Entrepreneurship in STEM took place. The event was completely online and contained 7 activities from our partners. Participants of the event have had the opportunity to get to know the corporate perspective on Entrepreneurship in STEM.

The conference had workshops “Expand your vision with EssilorLuxottica’s Operations Talent Program”, “Quick Atos Re-Boot Camp” and “Introduction to Robotic Process Automation” by UiPath. We are glad to have collaborated with Atos, Smulders, UiPath, EssilorLuxottica, SEFI, FEANI and EIIL. Without you, we couldn’t elaborate on the topic from such experience-rich perspectives and reach the same conclusions or results.

In the end, all participants together with speakers had institutional talks during the official closing.

INTERNATIONAL

PROJECTS FORUM

International Projects’ Forums (IPFs) are the second largest internal event in BEST. They gather around 50 people that come from all over BEST - International Board, Coordinators, International Teams Members, and people from Local BEST Groups just beginning their journey on the international side of BEST. All of them are from different countries, levels of experience, and backgrounds. Coming together to work together on planning, solving pressing issues and creating new ideas.

Summer IPF (sIPF) exists to finalise the creation of the Annual Action Plans of the organisation and departments, but it is also the first opportunity to meet with the International Board and the Coordinators in one place. Between the 20th and 24th of August 2021, Summer IPF happened online due to not having a host and the pandemic still affecting the organisation of a live meeting. The event was filled with successful sessions where all the participants had the opportunity to share their ideas with everyone present. There were also many activities for the participants to meet and get to know each other outside of working hours as well. With so many people involved at the same time, everyone felt just a few steps away.

Winter IPF (wIPF) is there to see how close we are to reaching the goals in the Annual Action Plans and to revise the scope of what is achievable by the end of the year. Fortunately, the organisation was able to organise Winter IPF in a live format. Between the 10th and 15th of February 2022, BEST Tallinn hosted this event where 45 people were present. It was a great opportunity for people to meet and work together on the plans created until the end of the mandates.

REGIONAL MEETINGS

As previously mentioned, our Local BEST Groups are split into 11 regions. This helps us to work and connect easier with the other volunteers. A Regional Meeting is an event that lasts for 4 days, where multiple training sessions and presentations happen.

The aim of this event is to create connections between the delegates of the LBGs that go there to learn about each other, how they develop locally and share useful practices. At the same time, presentations were held by the delegates from the international side, explaining how volunteers can be involved in projects where people around Europe are working.

KICK-OFF AND SHORT INTENSIVE MEETINGS

EBEC 2022 Kick-off Meeting - 2021 Online 9 - 17 October 2021

Coordinator - Dunja Olbina: The EBEC kickoff meeting (EBEC KOM) presents the event during which the new EBEC edition officially starts. It gathers EBEC Team and other EBEC enthusiasts, in order to discuss the most attractive topics for that year. During the event, the team sets a shared vision and jointly contributes to the development of one of the biggest services of BEST.

During EBEC KOM 2021, all the participants agreed that the leading quote of the year will be “EBEC - Where Innovation begins”, and the directions for the development of the new Innovative Design category were set. In the end, the outcomes of all the sessions that happened during that amazing October weekend contributed a lot to the overall success of the service and general satisfaction of all the stakeholders that took part in any of the EBEC Rounds during the 2021/22 edition!

student participation in BCC activities haven’t been ideal over the last few years.

The revision saw huge progress at BCC Revision KOM 2021 when a new direction and vision were set for the service. The KOM was ideated and executed by Panagiotis Lampsidis, Vice-President for Local Group Support as the main facilitator, with Anja Macan, Vice-President for Services as the Coordinator. The process started with defining the needs of our stakeholders in terms of career support, and taking those into account when identifying how BEST can address those needs through BCC. A big thank you to 17 participants that gave useful input during an accumulated 168 working hours which led to amazing outcomes of the BCC Revision KOM.

The reports from the KOM sessions were used as a basis for the new concept of BEST Career Centre. This work was done in January by Emil Ratković, Flávia Carvalhido, Leo Bolješić, Rita Almeida, and Bogdan Andrei Baltes as part of the Research & Development Working Group.

BCC Revision Kick-off Meeting 2021 Online

26 - 28 November 2021

Coordinator - Anja Macan: BEST Career Centre is one of the main Services of BEST through which career support is provided. However, the need for a revision has been identified, since partner satisfaction and

Finally, in February, the call for a new BCC team was sent out. The BCC team consisted of Alexander Stepanov, Inês Azevedo, and Eduard-Gabriel Stanescu. The team was coordinated by Rita Reis and Anja Macan of the XXXIV International Board. During the 5 months that the team was working, two separate mentoring programmes were prepared for launch in October. The first one is with BEST Alumni Network and the second is with Stanley Black & Decker.

Many more exciting things are planned for BCC, and we are excited to see what Rita Almeida, the next BCC Coordinator, has in store for all students’ careers!

Short Intensive Meeting of Corporate Relations Department - 2022 Online 25 - 27 February 2022

Coordinator - Mariia Kovalchuk: Last winter, Corporate Relations Department organised a 3 days-online event for members and external people. For us, it was the inner workings of CRD! During these 3 days we tackled issues such as the structure of our FR teams, how our KTs are structured, the timeline of our projects, and the goals and tasks we would like to set for the next year. Our participants had a great opportunity to facilitate some sessions and practice their presentation skills.

The CRD SIM 2022 had as a goal to work on the inner methods of the department. There were seven sessions in total.

• Structure of FR projects facilitated by Rita Reis (LBG Coimbra)

• Timeline of FR projects facilitated by Christine Savorgianaki (LBG Athens)

• Evaluation of KTs in FR projects facilitated by Eduard-Gabriel Stanescu (LBG Bucharest)

• How ContFR can actively contribute to other FR Projects facilitated by Gilles Jamotton (LBG Liege)

• The purpose of CRD members in the integration of new fundraisers facilitated by Diether Reynders (LBG Leuven)

• Setting priorities for next year facilitated by Vassilis Pipidis (LBG Thessaloniki)

• Prioritisation of SIM outcomes and timeline creation facilitated by David Thomas (LBG Madrid).

The general feel of the event was very positive and people felt very motivated afterwards. All of the outcomes have been taken into account by the management and are helping shape the rest of the mandate as well as the information that will be passed on to the next management.

Short Intensive Meeting of Training Department - 2022 Thessaloniki 11 - 14 March 2022

Coordinator - Clara Höll: This SIM was initiated by the Training Department to work on the direction the Training System will develop into for the coming 6 months to 2 years. Information on the current state and view on the Training system had already been gathered beforehand so that the outcomes only had to be presented and analysed on the SIM.

The department itself, the other international teams, and the Local BEST Groups were each taken into consideration when discussing. After the analysis, ideas for the new “Continuous Development Framework” were gathered, defined, and then prioritised. The general structure of the “CDF” had already been set at the Winter International Projects Forum 2022. At the end of the SIM the implementation of this Framework was discussed. It was concluded that there will be a continuous project inside the department that will change mandate every 6 months involving both trainers and non-trainers.

Short Intensive Meeting of Vivaldi Department - 2022 Porto 4 - 7 March 2022

Coordinator - Leonor Gomes: In March, the Vivaldi department got together in Porto in order to discuss emerging matters on BEST Courses. The goal of the event was to develop new concepts that could be applied to BEST Courses in order to make these events more relevant to students. After several sessions, it was concluded that we should stop limiting BEST Courses to formal education, create a relevant topic database and increase complexity and practical activities.

Short Intensive Meeting of Educational Involvement Department - 2022 Ghent

13 -16 May 2022

Coordinator - Vladica Pasic: In May 2022 in Ghent, volunteers involved in the work of EduID gathered to find ways to improve the Education Involvement Programme.

The EduID SIM, coordinated by Vladica Pasic, the EduID Coordinator, was organised with the goal to make our research more impactful and adapted to the needs of our stakeholders. During this event, we identified the needs of stakeholders in terms of Educational Involvement, reviewed the purpose of BSEs, and created the quality control system of EIP. Furthermore, the session focused on revising the structure of the EIP concluded that we should identify improvement points and not move towards restructuring the Programme.

After the SIM, EduID started working on the implementation plan which was incorporated into the AAP for the following year.

Short Intensive Meeting of EBEC - 2022 Zagreb

2 - 6 June 2022

Coordinator - Dunja Olbina: EBEC Short Intensive Meeting is an event that has multiple benefits for our organisation.

Firstly, everyone involved in the realisation and development of the EBEC service for the past year gather in one place in order to analyse the work done and define directions for the further development of EBEC.

Secondly, the Final Round task gets developed, tested and finalised so that the winners of the National/Regional Rounds can have a chance to put all of their skills to the test and compete for the title of the “BEST Engineers of Europe”.

Since the event is happening in Zagreb, the same city where the Final Round will be held, a detailed plan for the realisation of the biggest student engineering competition in Europe is made. Most importantly, however, everyone had a chance to leave the event with the idea that “Together - We are Final!”

Hosting these types of internal events helps the organisation develop and move forward. Every moment spent with people that share the same passion or vision brings out a lot of energy and enthusiasm in each of us. We want to thank every Local BEST Group for dedicating their resources and time to make these events possible to happen in a live format, and they are

• BEST Thessaloniki

• BEST Porto

• BEST Ghent

• BEST Zagreb

Eachyear, BEST submits a paper on a specific topic on Higher Education for the SEFI Annual Conference. The SEFI Annual Conference is a scientific conference focused on engineering education and the biggest event of this type in Europe. This year the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) celebrated its 50th Annual Conference in September 2022, hosted by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC).

Thus, the BEST team responsible for the paper was assembled in February 2022, which consisted of three members: Ali Yilmaz Yildrim, Claudia Cojan, and Vassilis Pipidis. The team was coordinated by Anja Macan. After the first draft submission, the grades received on peer reviews were 7.3 and 8.1, which were the highest ever that BEST’s paper has received in recent years! Furthermore, the paper was nominated for the top 3 Best Student Papers at the conference, receiving positive feedback and reactions from the committee, as well as attendees.

Our study focused on the analysis of how the digital competency of students and professors has created an impact on the effectiveness of new teaching methods and education tools during online classes, due to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, it summarised students’ experiences with digitalization during the COVID-19 pandemic, and provided recommendations for how to improve teaching methods of STEM education. In the current context, we can say that the pandemic meant an effort in teaching innovation. It is necessary to research what we have done and the goals we have obtained.

Congratulations to our paper team for the success at SEFI AC and a big thank you to everyone who helped with their input, comments, and guidance throughout the process of writing this paper.

During the Conference, BEST delegates had a very busy schedule! After Anja Macan presented the paper on Monday, our delegates Antonios Bikas and Aggelos Kokinis facilitated a panel discussion with industry experts on Tuesday. Wednesday was a day for students’ perspective, where Antonios Bikas facilitated a workshop with speakers Anja Macan, previous Vice-President for Services (BEST), and Francisca Trigueiros, Vice-President for Education (ESTIEM). Our delegates have returned, and are filled with new ideas and motivation to keep being the channel that enables students to have their voices heard. See you next year in Dublin at the next SEFI AC!

AIBG DEVELOPMENT

Artificial Intelligence Battleground (AIBG) is a 24-hour hackathon. The major difference between most hackathons and this one is the topic or the task. Our members create and design a game from scratch, and all competing teams must create an agent (artificial intelligence) whose task it is to battle agents from other teams and win the game. By letting our members completely code and design the game, we allow them to develop themselves which is aligned with the mission of our organisation.

Each year, our newly chosen topic team thinks of a new topic. After the game is defined and programmed, it is tested, while the tasks and storylines are written. For the participants, this provides a competition where they can test their knowledge in a unique environment. Instead of developing an application like in other hackathons, participants are facing a problem they are going to encounter in their career and this is what partners recognise. We have company representatives during the battles to see the result of the work from each of the teams, network and deliver rewards.

The Final Round of AIBG will gather the crème de la crème of all participants who have taken part in the local rounds, thus making the hackathon of even bigger prestige and difficulty.

Twenty four years ago, Local BEST Group Zagreb came into existence and exactly seven years ago, there was a group of enthusiastic members of this Local Group creating the very first Artificial Intelligence Battleground. Although the idea was born in a dark classroom with only a handful of programmers having fun, it didn’t stay like that.

What started from our local project, BEST Coding Challenge (active from 2010 to 2014), helped us create an innovative service such as AIBG in 2015. In March 2022, LBG Zagreb had its 6th iteration of AIBG, bigger than any before.

Ever since AIBG’s creation, LBG Zagreb worked hard to spread the word about the event, and as a result, other local BEST groups have shown interest in organising AIBG and some even organised it. Five years ago, BEST Timisoara organised their first AIBG. Furthermore, four years ago LBG Belgrade organised their first AIBG and they had their fourth iteration this December. This year, except for LBG Belgrade, we had teams competing in AIBG from LBG Novi Sad, LBG Niš, and LBG Madrid Carlos III.

For many years there have been talks between LBG Zagreb and LBG Belgrade about organising a Final Round. As a first step towards escalating this service, we knew we needed to set some regulations. Last year, we voted for the official AIBG Visual Identity, which has been shared with all the AIBGparticipating LBGs. Additionally, we created the AIBG KIT which contains all the needed handbooks and materials along with the official AIBG VI.

Between the 1st and 2nd of October 2022, the first ever AIBG SIM took place in Zagreb. Alongside LBG Zagreb, participants from LBG Belgrade, LBG Novi Sad and LBG Niš discussed topic escalation from the Local to the Final Round, the concept of a final round, types of awards, marketing and fundraising strategies, etc. During the sixteen working hours, the final round of AIBG started to form a clear shape and it is possible to start the organisation of the event.

Introduction

What are servers? What is IT Infrastructure? And why are they important?

What is a server?

A server is a computer or system that provides resources, data, services or programs to other computers, known as clients, over a network. In theory, whenever computers share resources with client machines they are considered servers. Every time you open PA, imagine you are connecting to another PC that contains all the information you see on each page of the PA. That other PC, is a server hosting the PA.

What is IT Infrastructure?

Information technology (IT) infrastructure is the components required to operate and manage enterprise IT environments. IT infrastructure can be deployed within a cloud computing system, or within an organisation’s own facilities. The components required are Hardware, Software and Networking.

Why are servers important?

For an organisation like BEST working primarily online, it adds great value to provide online services to our volunteers and to our stakeholders. But the provision of these services requires important work behind the scenes on a reliable, maintainable and secure IT infrastructure which relies on multiple servers.

History

Since 1994, BEST volunteers saw the opportunities the internet and servers offered. After the fact, the Technical Committee was founded, a body that would have to deal with all technical issues presented to the organisation. Soon, the infrastructure would take a new, specific form.

From IT Committee History

In 1997 a technical revolution happened with an EVS - Electronical Voting System. The Internet domain started, a version in Lotus Notes started by a French girl which wasn’t used in production and the base for ITC - more like a technical use. Somewhere between 1998 and 1999 a new server started to work: its name was Anna. The specs include a HDD of 200 MB. The machine may still be in the BEST office in Tallinn (offline). The machine ran DNS servers and mailing lists. Zoltan bought Malaka, stored in Stockholm, 4 days before GA 2000 and it’s not running at the moment. The HDD crashed in 2002 during the mandate to 2003 (Priit’s mandate). The server ran Lotus Notes with the first PA (or the second official implementation). Sometime during the end of 2003, Tallinn was bought without any official decision from the Board. Tequila was bought, fortunately, one month before the crash of Malaka.

And that’s how it all started. Through the years we changed a lot of servers. At the beginning we had servers that were owned by LBGs and ITC was responsible for maintaining them.

Recently, almost 5 years ago, BEST owned servers from Hetzner, a company dedicated to providing servers and web hosting among other things. Until 2022 the servers we ownedwere Quigon, Thrawn and Jaeger.

Following the persistent occurrence of hardware errors on Quigon and the general great difficulty to work with the servers, Jaeger in particular, it was decided at the end of 2021 to operate a server transition to new, more performant and cheaper servers. This is when BEST entered the era of SSD drives. This transition was the cause of a certain instability in the websites of BEST, but it ultimately led to a dramatic increase in performances, a much better understanding of our IT infrastructure and a more secure environment. Along the way, we got rid of our DNS server and of several old virtual machines that were not used anymore.

The new servers are complemented by the use of virtual machines on Azure. We use VMs for communication between servers, backup, password management and our git handler.

Server infrastructure

Basic information about the servers and the virtual machines we have:

Jabba is our main server. It is the most performant one we have, while Obiwan is the secondary server.

Han functions as the mediator between all other servers and VMs. It hosts a load balancer, acts as a SSH proxy, and is the entrypoint to our VPN.

R2-D2 is our Virtual Machine for backups. A 2 TB HDD is mounted on it to receive the important quantity of static data backed up. It is crucial to have a proper backup policy so that in case something happens to our systems, we can simply bring them back to an older, more well functioning state.

Gitlab VM is the Virtual Machine we use for our code and our tasklist management. We have 5 different tasklists that utilise the Agile Kanban Boards concept. Furthermore, all the changes and updates on BEST websites happen through Gitlab. It is our secure repository manager.

Password manager VM is the Virtual Machine for our Password vault. For the cybersecurity of our organisation, it would be good if everyone kept their passwords there.

To use and organise the infrastructure more efficiently, ITD has been utilising well known technologies. Some of these technologies are for databases, others are better ways to create and use containers in Linux and others are the distribution version-control platform that we use. Some of the tools are: LXD, Percona with Galera & MySQL, Gluster, Node JS, Makumba, Gitlab, and Debian.

LXD is a manager of containers to contain our BEST servers, Jabba and Obi-wan. Containers are used by programs so that they are independent of the environment of the server and can be deployed easily.

Percona with Galera & MySQL. For simplicity we use something called Percona XtraDB Cluster version 5.6 which contains Galera and a MySQL server along with some helpful tools for maintenance. A database replication system and MySQL is a database management system used to retrieve and update efficiently the data manipulated by our servers.

Gluster is a free and open source software scalable network filesystem. It allows us to store files on multiple machines while being part of the same filesystem. We use it to store our archives. Thanks to Gluster, our archives are directly accessible on the machines where PA is running. The synchronisation of the content in the archive is automagically handled by Gluster. It also allows us to maintain a high availability for our archives, which means that if one of the storage units of our servers dies or if one of our servers crashes, we can still maintain access to our archives.

Node JS is an execution environment that interprets the Node JS code and that extends the basic language with additional libraries. Additionally, it is popular in Server management, from the server-side, but also for frontend.

Makumba is a framework we use in BEST and it’s used for creating web-apps. It mixes the frontend and the UI of BEST websites, along with fetching and displaying data in the UI. The technologies that it utilises are Java, for the logic on the server side and MQL, which is similar to SQL.

Debian is a Linux distribution that is used as an OS for our servers. We use it for the stability it provides.

BEST has one of the strongest Training Communities among other NGOs, providing numerous training opportunities to its volunteers. These can vary from stand-alone sessions to longer training events, like Trainshops or TRAPs.

First, let’s take a look at some numbers to gain a better understanding of our Training System. Currently, there are more than 100 active trainers in our Training Community who delivered in total more than 2.500 training hours to almost 2.000 BESTies during last year.

Now that we have a better overview of our statistics, let’s see how we achieve all of that.

Every year, we try to organise at least one Train the Trainer event, called TRAP (Trainers’ Camp), where new trainers get educated. During this event new trainers learn how to design and deliver a learning experience, how to optimally meet the participants’ needs and how to be able to adapt to every setting, group or environment.

After becoming a BEST trainer, they are ready to support the Training System of the Organisation. What does this mean? Well, deliver training sessions and develop our volunteers, of course.

Throughout all these years that our Community exists, we have developed a lot of different concepts to better achieve this goal. This is evident, if we take into account the various topics or events or even formats our trainers are capable of delivering.

One of the most characteristic examples is the effort to adapt into the online environment, after COVID-19 forced us to cancel all live events. This new reality led us to the development of the online versions of Trainshops and TRAPs. Since the first lockdown in 2020, the Community managed to organise 3 online Trainshops and 1 TRAP. Additionally, we were even able to have a

TRAP in a hybrid manner, where there were some online sessions ahead of the actual live event. This allowed for a live schedule with more mental breaks for the participants. This is a concept that is expected to be kept for further iterations.

Another thing worth highlighting is the new “Continuous Development Framework”, which is a dynamic strategic document that allows the Training Department to follow a more flexible strategy compared to what has been done in the past in order to address the ever-changing training needs of the organisation.

A big round of applause for every trainer who strives to improve BEST and its volunteers, we are more than grateful for your involvement!

HOW AND WHAT’S THE EXPERİENCE OF ORGANİSİNG AN ONLİNE EVENT?

How do you decide which events in your event programme can be taken virtual?

When running a big organisation like BEST, both internationally and locally, the most important aspects to consider are your resources. Online events require less HR and less financial resources. However, virtual events are different from live events in different aspects: engagement, impact, attendance rate and attractiveness. It is important to take into account both positive and negative aspects of each format and make a decision based on what is more important or feasible for you.

What do you want the virtual experience to look like?

It is crucial to first understand the expectation of your target audience and design an experience for them. A common mistake is just transferring the live concept of the event to the online format and later wondering why it didn’t work. Take advantage of the digital tools that exist and create the experience for your attendees, not for yourself.

How will your content attract and engage attendees?

Online events are sometimes less impactful due to the low engagement of attendees. It is very easy to get distracted by the external world around you - your phone, your friends, your life back at home is closer to you than this event happening only on your screen. Therefore, it is needed to define different ways to interact with attendees and get your message across, which could potentially include a bigger conceptual revision of events as we know them nowadays. Attention span is shorter and your willingness to make yourself available throughout the day is condensed. All these issues mean you need to analyse the lifestyle of your target audience and plan your event around their limited availability, not against it.

How will you capture engagement data?

It is dependent on WHAT you want to extract from engagement data. When we start from WHY, the HOW will come naturally. Some platforms come already equipped with data tracking dashboards, nevertheless some of the basic (essential) data needed to analyse engagement on the event is:

• total registrations;

• total attendees;

• repeat registrants;

• number of attendees who joined session(s);

• average number of sessions attended per attendee;

• median number of sessions attended by attendees;

• number of reactions (emojis used) in the session;

• percentage of attendees speaking in the session;

• average time spent on the event;

• total participants who sent a question in a session feed vs total question in session feed.

How to prepare attendees for the event?

It is important to get them familiar with the platform you will be using for the event. Having guidelines on the platform explaining how to sign-in, how to download the app and navigate through the platform, as well as encourage them to use the communication channels is the key in preparing attendees. In BEST, we have a set of standard procedures, ranging from group chats, Discord channels, calendar invites, etc. which help attendees keep track of the event, sessions and notifications.

How to encourage engagement and networking during the event?

Prepare a set of activities that will give value to attendees, and also promote bonding between attendees themselves. Team activities have a big psychological impact on the person and can make them believe that not attending a certain activity will be more noticeable in the group, compared to n attending alone and feeling like they are just one person out of many who will be joining the session. Try to avoid the mass effect, and always have a couple of internal people nudging the rest of the attendees to be more active, by leading by example.

Is it possible to turn your live event into a virtual event at the last minute? How?

It definitely is! It is important to set a certain deadline after which you should decide on the final format. Last last minute should be avoided, especially with international attendees. It is important to see which aspects of the event remain the same no matter the format in the initial stages of planning, and foresee which aspects will need to be worked on if you switch to a virtual format in the end. This will allow for better crisis management!

What is the motivation of people to join online events?

There are several benefits to online events, namely the efficiency and cost. As a person does not need to travel to the place of the event, they save money and time which would otherwise be spent solely on travelling. Furthermore, it is more inclusive for people of different socioeconomic backgrounds and their fear of possible COVID-19 infection. Additionally, the schedule of the online events is no longer bound to the daily booking of a venue or opening hours. You can have an event whenever it suits you and your attendees, allowing for a more flexible schedule.

What are the difficulties in organising an online event?

As we mentioned earlier, online events are sometimes less impactful, so it is a big difficulty to understand how to define different ways to interact with attendees and get your message across. Based on the statistics, online events are not as attractive as live events in terms of attendance. It is difficult to attract participants, but as one very wise person said “The only limit to your impact is your imagination and commitment”.

How do you ensure that everyone is healthy during online events?

During events, it is always important to remind people to stay hydrated, eat healthy or regularly, and also stretch every once in a while. In BEST, we have a designated team which sends out reminders to attendees, and also in the breaks between sessions or lengthy discussions we do short stretching or dance games to stay active throughout the day!

SpaceTec (Cassini Hackathons) ABInbeV

SpaceTec Partners assists its clients with management consulting, market development and innovation advisory, as specialists in the space industry. SpaceTec’s areas of activity include space (earth observation, navigation, satellite communications, exploration and situational awareness), geoinformation, security & defence, transportation & aviation, mobile & mobility, and energy.

The CASSINI Hackathons & Mentoring is the flagship action of the European Commission’s Competitive Space Start-ups for Innovation Initiative (CASSINI). Its goal is to stimulate the spur-of-the-moment development of innovative initiatives based on data and information from Copernicus satellite images and Galileo & EGNOS positioning signals.

ABInbeV is the world’s leading brewer bringing people together for a better world. For centuries, the experience of sharing a beer has brought people and cultures together.

They are AB InBev. Committed to driving growth that leads to better living for more people in more places, through brands and experiences that bring people together. They are dedicated to brewing the best beer with the best ingredients, by being committed to helping farmers, retailers, entrepreneurs, and communities grow.

They are dedicated to building a company that will last for the next 100 years. Through their brands and their investment in communities, they bring more people together, making their company an integral part of their consumers’ lives for generations to come.

Dept Agency

Dept is a digital agency of 750 experienced thinkers and makers. They have been at the forefront of the digital industry for decades. Their agency merges creativity, technology, and data. Their teams include experts in creative, digital, marketing and commerce.

Celonis

Celonis is the global leader in execution management. The Celonis Execution Management System provides companies with a modern way to run their business processes entirely on data and intelligence. They pioneered the process mining category 10 years ago when we first developed the ability to automatically X-ray processes and find inefficiencies.

Their diverse portfolio of well over 500 beer brands includes global brands like Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois; multi-country brands Beck’s, Castle, Castle Light, Leffe and Hoegaarden; and local champions such as Aguila, Antarctica, Bud Light, Brahma, Cass, Chernigivske, Cristal, Harbin, Jupiler, Klinskoye, Michelob Ultra, Modelo Especial, Quilmes, Victoria, Sedrin, Sibirskaya Korona, and Skol.

Anheuser-Busch InBev is a publicly traded company (Euronext: ABI) based in Leuven, Belgium, with secondary listings on the Mexican (MEXBOL: ANB) and South African (JSE: ANH) stock exchanges and with American Depositary Receipts on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BUD).

Wiley Edge Siemens

Siemens is a global powerhouse focusing on the areas of electrification, automation and digitalisation. One of the world’s largest producers of energyefficient, resource-saving technologies, Siemens is a leading supplier of systems for power generation and transmission as well as medical diagnoses. The company plays a pioneering role in infrastructure and industry solutions.

Wiley Edge works with employers to find and train top talent for their most difficult-to-fill jobs. Since the acquisition in January 2020, Wiley has more than tripled its portfolio of corporate partners and doubled the number of college graduates trained and placed in technology, business, and banking roles with multinational corporations. The rebranding from “MThree” to “Wiley Edge” further integrates the company into a career-connected education portfolio that is focused on helping universities and corporations close the widening skills and talent gaps in the labour market.

Stanley Black&Decker

Stanley Black & Decker Inc (Stanley) is a provider of industrial equipment. It manufactures, markets and sells hand tools, power tools and related accessories, engineered fastening systems and products, services and equipment. The company also provides video surveillance, fire alarm monitoring, alarm monitoring, systems integration and system maintenance services. Stanley markets its offerings under the Black & Decker, Facom, Craftsman, Lenox, Irwin, Bostitch, DeWALT, Porter-Cable, GQ, FLEXVOLT and Stanley brands. It serves the oil & gas and infrastructure applications, healthcare solutions, commercial electronic security and monitoring systems, and mechanical access solutions in the consumer, oil and natural gas pipeline, industrial and other customers across the world. Stanley is headquartered in New Britain, Connecticut, the US.

Wiley Edge provides employers with a distinct edge in utilising emerging talent by harnessing a hiretrain-deploy model that finds college grads and equips them with in-demand skill sets to meet the highly specific needs of individual corporations. After spending 3-12 weeks at the Wiley Edge Academy, graduates are deployed to one of Wiley’s corporate clients for 12-24 months, after which they transition into full-time roles with the hard, soft, and companyspecific skills needed to succeed. Wiley’s client list includes many of the world’s largest and most respected corporations.

Wiley Edge also helps corporations unlock the potential within their existing workforces through upskilling and reskilling programs that create the skilled talent they need while enhancing employee retention and recruitment efforts — a need that has grown more acute during the Great Resignation. For example, Wiley Edge is currently assisting a leading global investment bank with its technology transformation and Agile/DevOps maturity program, with a goal to educate and build a baseline level of site reliability engineering (SRE) capability across its technology workforce.

Smulders

Smulders is an international steel construction company with more than 1,000 employees working across offices in Belgium, Poland and the United Kingdom. They have a proven track record in the engineering, construction, supply and assembly of heavy, technical complex and architectonic steel constructions. They are active in the following markets: Civil & Industry, Offshore Oil & Gas and Offshore Wind.

Throughout the past decades, their main goal has always been “to make our client’s wishes reality”. Combining their passion for steel with their extensive expertise enables them to bring unique products to the market.

They create their products with utmost care and a keen eye for quality in constant proactive interaction with their clients. They stand out in terms of know-how and technical skills, but most of all because of their drive to fulfil the promises we make to their clients. That is why their reference projects are working at full speed all over the world. Simply because they were realised with a true passion for steel.

Smulders is a member of the Infrastructure branch of the Eiffage Group, a leading figure in the European concessions and public works sector operating through four business lines: Construction, Infrastructure, Energy and Concessions.

The Eiffage group has 70,000 employees in 50 countries. Headquartered in France, Eiffage stands out for the diversity of its skills and technical knowhow.

Atos

Q1: Can you give us more information regarding the main areas of interest in your company?

Atos is the global leader in the secure and decarbonised digital industry with a range of marketleading digital solutions along with consultancy services, digital security and decarbonisation offerings: an end-to-end partnership approach. Together, we are a force pushing boundaries of scientific and technological excellence to ensure that everyone can live, work and thrive sustainably in a secure information space.

A leader in Cloud and Digital Workplace, Atos is also ranked #1 in managed security services work side by revenue (2021). With these capabilities plus best-inclass computing power and the pioneering Quantum Learning Machine, Atos is helping to design the future of the information space.

Atos is SE (Societas European) listed on Euronext Paris and included on the CAC 40 ESG and Next 20 Paris Stock Indexes.

The worldwide IT Partner to the Olympic Movement since 1989, providing services for the Olympic Games Barcelona 1992 Organising Committee and then becoming the Olympic Movement’s Worldwide Information Technology Partner in 2001.

Atos is a recognised pioneer in rising to the sustainability challenges faced by society and industry; from decarbonised digital services to compliance with data privacy regulations to supporting diversity and accessibility, Atos has always been at the forefront of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) innovation.

As a leading innovator, Atos organises the 1st international student competition dedicated to technological innovation; The Atos IT Challenge. The challenge tackles prevalent and stimulating topics working with students across the globe on real life applications which add value to our business.

Q2: What made you decide to collaborate with BEST?

We share the same commitment to student development and growth, we are able to work in partnership with you to engage with students from technology backgrounds and support them with their career into the exciting world of IT and digital. We appreciate the network you have created by bringing partners, students, companies and Universities closer together. The partnership we have with BEST brings exciting and inspiring opportunities to be involved in collaborative events that help us to not only showcase our incredible workforce, projects, initiatives and ambitions, but also to engage with innovative students across the globe.

Q3: How was your collaboration with BEST? (impressions, opinions, what was the event, what were the outcomes?)

Working in partnership with BEST we have found the relationship to be professional, exciting, energetic and a genuine commitment to student development & growth. The BEST events are well managed, planned and organised and also very engaging. Our working partnership is one we are very proud of here at Atos and look forward very much to continuing to grow together in the future. The BEST Virtual Summit of 2021 with the theme of building the future of diversity was one of great importance to Atos, as we strive to be a truly inclusive organisation with a diverse workforce, dedicated to supporting the lives of our people. This event allowed some of our experts in the field to present and work with students on various topics within DEI and the feedback from all parties was incredible.

Q4: We have collaborated multiple times in the past. Why did you choose to partner with us repeatedly, what were the benefits?

Our strategy and values are very much aligned, you have enabled us to “tap into” your extensive network of students, this in turn supports our recruitment strategy to have the “best” in class students, joining Atos as a Graduate or Intern, emerging themselves in the many opportunities that technology has to offer and also enjoy the experience of working across the globe with our colleagues in 73 Countries. We are looking forward to continuing our work together and very excited for what is yet to come in 2023.

Mila Simić from LBG Belgrade attended Europe3D Portugal by ESTIEM: This September, I had the opportunity to be one of the participants of Europe3D Portugal in Aveiro, a week-long ESTIEM event, designed so participants can learn about the three dimensions of a given country - its politics, economy, and culture. In the few short days which passed by more quickly than I could’ve even imagined, I learned a lot about how Portugal works and how it’s like for people and students to live in this amazing country, and thats’s all thanks to the many lectures, workshops, and group discussions we had. I have made so many memories and friends from all around Europe, and I am immensely proud to say that I have improved myself a lot as a person - most of all, improved my understanding of other cultures, those much different than my own. This week has arguably been one of the best weeks of my life, and I can’t wait to experience something like this again. Thank you ESTIEM LG Aveiro, and see you again soon!

Ambassadors of BEST are people who ensure the constant communication and development of the collaboration with the official student NGOs partners of BEST. They are establishing and keeping an overview of what is happening with the international student NGOs in the European landscape. Through them, BEST is represented in the events of our partner NGOs.

Selma Isic from LBG Mostar, Ambassador of BEST, attended two IFISO meetings: As ambassador of BEST I had the opportunity to attend Autumn and Spring IFISO Meetings. Events are true examples of networking and knowledge sharing. Since IFISO is not only gathering student NGOs from Europe, it was nice to learn more about the NGO field in Asia, Africa and USA.

Daniel García from Madrid Carlos III about EYE21: The European Youth Event is an event organised every two years by the European Parliament that brings to Strasbourg and online thousands of young people from all over the European Union and the world, the opportunity to share and shape their ideas on Europe’s future.

For the edition EYE2021, a couple of BESTies attended the event, embedded in the delegation of the umbrella organisation “Generation Climate Europe”. We joined a wide variety of workshops as well as plenary sessions in the hemicycle, where people had the opportunity to address their concerns to EU policy makers.

The event was a great opportunity to network with other youth organisations, and to better understand the European ecosystem and the opportunities it offers. The only open question that remained wasWill BEST have their own delegation in EYE2023?

Selin Barin from Istanbul Bogazici about ESTIEM College 2022: It was a great experience to represent BEST at another NGO’s event. ESTIEMers were very warm and friendly. In addition to getting to know different people, discovering Budapest and trying new things at the event, I had the chance to look at our organisation from a different perspective, so it was a very unique experience for me.

Attended Events

AEGEE Autumn and Spring Agora

BEST was represented during AEGEE’s Autumn Agora, which took place online in November 2021, and also, Spring Agora which was organised in Novi Sad in May 2022. The Autumn and Spring Agora are events typically gathering around 700 attendees. This was a great opportunity to learn about several of AEGEE’s projects, such as Europe on Track and Y Vote.

CFES Presidents’ Meeting

BEST attended the CFES Presidents’ Meeting in September 2021. The Presidents’ Meeting takes place every fall and is attended by the National executives, the Board of Directors and the 53 members associations’ delegates. This meeting’s purpose is to offer an opportunity to the socially implicated engineering students across the country, and to discuss and share ideas to improve Canadian students’ university experience.

CFES Canadian Engineering Leadership Conference

(CELC)

BEST attended the CFES’s CELC in January 2022. This meeting serves as the Annual General Meeting of the CFES and it is their largest event with the aim of providing a platform for students to collaborate and learn from their industry partners, sponsors, and fellow students. Furthermore, CELC provides the setting of an International Summit with the rest of its International Partners.

EESTEC Autumn/Spring Congress

EESTEC Congresses are the general assemblies of EESTEC. BEST was invited and represented at the Autumn Congress in November 2021 in Zurich, and the Spring Congress in May 2022 in Belgrade. The events gather delegates from every local committee of EESTEC, and many other people involved in the international level of the organisation EESTEC.

ESTIEM Autumn Council Meeting

BEST was represented during ESTIEM’s Autumn Council Meeting in November 2021 in Seville. It was great to experience first-hand how similar BEST and ESTIEM are in terms of aims, methods, structure, and spirit.

IFISO Autumn Meeting and IFISO Spring Meeting

The Informal Forum for International Students Organisations (IFISO) is a non-political and nonprofit forum for international organisations run by students, that works for the benefit of students in different fields of study. The purpose of this forum is to offer these NGOs an opportunity to network, share knowledge, and encourage pursuing new possible collaborations. Additionally, the new management team and the host for the next IFISO Spring Meeting was elected here. A member of BEST is also part of the management.

ESTIEM College

BEST was represented in ESTIEM College which happened in February 2022 in Budapest. This event gathers around 25 of the most active members of ESTIEM, who are usually leaders and part of the board, to work for five days on the future of ESTIEM. The event consists of several sessions in which they discuss the latest developments, current problems, and strategic decisions.

AEGEE is one of Europe’s biggest interdisciplinary student organisations, striving for a democratic, diverse, and borderless Europe. As a non-governmental, politically independent, and non-profit organisation, AEGEE is open to students and young people from all faculties and disciplines. Founded in 1985 in Paris, today AEGEE has grown to a Network of 13 000 AEGEEans, present in 161 cities in 40 countries all over Europe. Through their activities, they empower students and young people in Europe to take an active role in society. They create a space for dialogue, and learning opportunities, as well as act as their representative towards decision-makers. AEGEE strengthens mutual understanding among young Europeans, and brings Europe closer to young people.

ESTIEM is the organisation for Industrial Engineering and Management students, who combine technological understanding with management skills. Founded in 1990, their goal is to foster relations between IEM students, and support their development. They are striving for each IEM Student to have a connection not only with other students all over Europe in the same field, but also to other companies and universities, to ensure each student has a voice as well as the opportunity to make a difference, and to allow each outstanding innovative idea to become a reality.

The Canadian Federation of Engineering Students is a bilingual national student organisation, representing Canadian engineering students. Their goal is to enhance the student experience through opportunities fostering the development of leadership, professional and ethical qualities, engineering identity, technical proficiency, and communication. Each year, they host a number of annual engineering conferences to foster leadership and networking, engineering competitions to inspire innovation and work with external partners to provide education, and outreach opportunities.

Electrical Engineering STudents’ European assoCiation is an apolitical, non-governmental and non-profit organisation for EECS (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) students at universities, institutes, and schools of technology. EESTEC aims to develop international contacts, and to encourage the exchange of ideas among EECS students through professional workshops, cultural student exchanges, and publications. With various activities that EESTEC provides, it creates opportunities for students to develop in their academic, professional, and social lives.

Bonding is a German student association focused on providing undergraduates as well as graduate students insights into the working life, and giving opportunities to get in touch with employers of all kinds. A wide portfolio of events, all being free of charge for students, enables them to pursue these goals. For instance, they form the market leader for job fairs in Germany. You can find a bonding local group at thirteen university cities, mostly technical universities, in Germany. As a registered association all their members work voluntarily and, as mentioned, their services are offered to fellow students for free.

What made you join BEST?

Jakov Jakovac (JJ), BEST Zagreb: In my hometown I didn’t have many activities outside the education system, so when I looked up what BEST does, I was instantly hooked.“

Sofia Ferreira Leite, BEST Porto: I’ve always lived in Porto and the people from high school were basically the same as in University. I saw BEST as an opportunity to make new friends, broaden my horizons, and travel all over Europe.

Lejla Alibegovic, BEST Mostar: In 2018 I was a freshman who just came to Mostar to study IT. One day I saw a post that BEST Mostar was organising a BEST Course in Spring on a topic I was really interested in, so eventually I applied as a local participant. The core team were young people, just like me, who did an amazing job with the whole organisation of the event. I realised that I want to be a part of it, I want to be a part of people who will not only study, but will achieve great things.

Katrijn Vandenborne, BEST Ghent: Hearing the stories of BESTies, and what experiences they had within BEST, at an HR event that gave us a look into BEST Ghent. It felt like I was talking to a family, who cared for each other, and this was reflected through everyone’s openness and hospitality. You could just feel it in the room that they all were connected.

Csaba Bánki, BEST Budapest: I wanted to do something during my university years that is not strictly related to my studies. I also wanted to travel and meet new people from all over Europe.

What made you stay BEST?

Wouter Lenaerts, BEST Ghent: My bond with the people in our LBG. BEST has become my home, and the people in it my friends

Ana Margarida Freitas, BEST Porto: My first year in BEST was all online, so I didn’t have many possibilities to get to know people, and to know the BEST spirit. So the next year, when people started to go out more, and BEST events came back in person, I got addicted to the BEST spirit, and now my life is basically BEST, and attending events, which I love.

Konstantinos Antonopoulos, BEST Thessaloniki: I stayed because it’s an organisation that offers a lot, and at the same time, it gives you the opportunity to offer a lot. It’s a good, fun, and productive way to spend your time.

Fabio Negretti, BEST Milan: Friendly atmosphere, learning soft skills, personal growth, are all factors which made me stay. As my commitment to BEST grew, I felt the association became part of my everyday life.

Carcu Catalin, BEST Brasov: The fact that I noticed myself improving more and more, and also the friends that I made, play a huge role in my stay in BEST. I feel like for the first time in a few years I actually made some real friends that I can count on.

Mariia Kovalchuk, BEST Kyiv: People. BEST is always about people! Of course, I was impressed by the number of areas where you can be involved, and the amount of knowledge you can get. But all this will come to you in communication with wonderful people, who will support, guide, and appreciate you. The best moment for me is when you become lifelong friends with some of them, and share common interests.

Oana Strafalogea, BEST Brasov: I started my international involvement right after my first RM. I was simply fascinated by everything that was presented there, and the BEST delegates played a huge part. As a 6 months old BESTie, I knew that, someday, I want to be as cool as those delegates, to inspire, and motivate young BESTies to become like me. So, for the past 2 years, I dedicated my time, energy, and love to this side of the organisation, aiming to become better day by day, and also, helping those that surround me reach their BEST version.

Wouter Lenaerts, BEST Ghent: The support I got from the international board and coordinators during autumn GA, showed me that BEST is filled with people who are ready to help anybody who needs it. There’s so many amazing people, and I’d love to meet more of them.

Sofia Ferreira Leite, BEST Porto: I started my international involvement after attending my first Regional Meeting in Coimbra in 2019. That experience made me realise the dimension of BEST, and that apparently there was a whole world out there aside from the already quite expansive world of a local BEST group. It was in this event that I realised, that I could get to know even more people even from the comfort of my own home while working with them on international projects.

Katerina Tziola, BEST Thessaloniki: I started because I wanted to travel outside of Greece with BEST. Somehow, I went to Zagreb for the EBEC Final.

Ana Margarida Freitas, BEST Porto: I started because I wanted to take advantage of that opportunity, that is working in a multicultural environment.

Afrodite Mparouti, BEST Thessaloniki : I love BEST Courses, so I wanted to see more of that out of my LBG. Through the process I found it really refreshing to work in a multicultural environment.

Filipe Ventura, BEST Porto: I think the Regional Meetings are a huge motivation to get internationally involved, since you get a better perspective of what BEST is, and how nice it is to interact and work with people with different cultures.

Fabio Negretti, BEST Milan: Getting to share thoughts and ideas with BESTies around Europe, along with travelling to meetings and such, would be a good motivation for getting internationally involved.

Wiktoria, BEST Wroclaw: I wanted to try something new in my life. I was curious to work with people from an international environment, and BEST gave me this opportunity.

Radu, BEST Vienna: Getting to be around people from different parts of Europe is always great, as you get to talk to someone from cultures that may be entirely different from yours, and hear their perspective on things. Additionally, I feel like BEST has given me so much up until now that I feel like I need to return the favour.

Which BESTie experience made me discover myself even more?

Tim, BEST Lyon: Being an organiser in our BEST course made me realise many things about myself, and what I was capable of. I feel like I discovered that I could lead a team, and speak to a group, which were things that I was afraid of doing before.

Lejla Alibegovic, BEST Mostar: This is simple. Being an LBG delegate at the Spring Regional Meeting of Region C in Skopje. This experience was literally a highlight of all the years I’ve been in BEST. Every moment of that event will stay in my memory. So many new people, perspectives, gained knowledge, teambuildings. It was like a motivation boost for me, and I was so hyped even months after it was over. It showed me that I could do bigger things, and that there is so much more I can learn or be involved in.

Jimis, BEST Thessaloniki: When I joined BEST I was at a low point, but by being a social responsible of a BEST Course, and with the help from members of my LBG I stood back on my feet, and discovered that I love being active and doing things all the time. Also, I discovered I love talking, interacting, and helping people wherever they need. So I am now the VPHR of my LBG.

Filipe Ventura, BEST Porto: I would say the Vivaldi SIM that our LBG organised with BEST Madrid Carlos III, because I was an organiser, and it was my first contact with the international side of BEST, so there I met my first BESTies outside of my LBG which motivated me to want to know more about that side of BEST.

Alice Sciandra, BEST Arts et Métiers: It was organising a BEST Course. I met so many amazing people, I didn’t even think it was possible! What I really love about BEST is its diversity: a diversity of people, opportunities, and cultures.

Tim Olde, BEST Leuven: Being President of my LBG. I think I’m not a natural born leader at all, but I really wanted to learn how to be in such a position. In just one year I got much more comfortable being the centre of attention, I got better at managing so many things going on at once, and generally became a much more confident person.

Raquel Gonçalves, BEST Coimbra: I believe it was the Board Training, when I became president. Everyday was a true discovery about myself and others, and I will remember that forever.

Patrícia Cruz, BEST Coimbra: Being the Main Organiser of an event completely changed me. I needed to be a leader for my Core Team, even when things were not working so well. It made me discover how to delegate tasks, motivate people, and deal with stressful moments. When I applied to be a MO, I was so excited, but so scared at the same time. So the lesson I got from this experience was to apply for things that I am scared of, because those are the ones that will make me learn the most.

Mariia Kovalchuk, BEST Kyiv: An experience that I will remember for a long time was the coordination of the GA FR 2021 team. I was blessed to work with many wonderful people, and later to meet most of them in person. Yes, like all teams, we had wonderful and stormy times, but we managed everything. The best moment for me was seeing people grow and change. What they previously thought was impossible, now they do with great ease, isn’t it cool? I am grateful for this experience, because it taught me a lot inside, and outside of BEST.

Afrodite Mparouti, BEST Thessaloniki: During Spring General Assembly 2022 I saw that BEST is so much more that I could of ever imagined, and it motivated me to be involved in it, even more.

Csaba Bánki, BEST Budapest: My summer course in Almada was a very special time of my life. I was struggling to find the people that appreciate me at home so my selfesteem was very low. But during those days, and especially the last night, I felt that finally people like me for who I am, and they genuinely enjoyed spending time with me.

Alba Ramírez, BEST Las Palmas: I was part of a struggling LBG. At first, staying motivated was hard, because I was working so much to keep us floating and alive. And then we decided to take a risk and organise Spring Regional Meeting 2022 for our region. I was exhausted from all the hard work, and suddenly everything vanished, and I could only be excited to be part of such a brilliant community.

Thanks for Contributing To The Magazine

Aggelos Kokkinis

BEST Patras

Simon Petit

BEST Liège

Stathis Vezyris BEST Chania

Luna Rosseel BEST Ghent

Leo Boljesic BEST Zagreb

Dunja Olbina BEST Belgrade

Anna Tsebenoha BEST Lviv

Ariel Ediang BEST Liège

Maria Carolina Janeiro BEST Coimbra

Irem Yilmaz BEST Izmir

Rita Almeida BEST Aveiro

Irem Alpcetin BEST Izmir

Francesco Marino BEST Turin

Clara Höll BEST Erlangen

Arnaldo Neto BEST Porto

Leonor Gomes

BEST Porto

Vladica Pasic BEST Novi Sad

Mariia Kovalchuk BEST Kyiv

Panagiotis Lampsidis BEST Thessaloniki

Evelina Samineli BEST Chania

Rita Reis BEST Coimbra

Perrine Bauchot BEST ENSTA Bretagne

Anja Macan BEST Zagreb

Alexander Kadoglou BEST Thessaloniki

Antonios Bikas BEST Athens

Maria Lucic BEST Zagreb

Selin Barin BEST Istanbul Bogazici

Daniel García García BEST Madrid Carlos III

Selma Isic BEST Mostar

Mila Simic BEST Belgrade

Marilena Tsami BEST Thessaloniki

Thanos Pyliotis BEST Athens

Eymen Gökkaya BEST Istanbul Yildiz

Luís Silva BEST Aveiro

Eva Ivanov BEST Skopje

Uros Nedeljkovic BEST Belgrade

Renzo Russel BEST Delft

Marija Maneva BEST Skopje

Maria Alexe BEST Vienna

Ana Noevska BEST Skopje