First Binational Student Conference held at UTNBA

On October 26, the First Binational Student Conference, organized by UTNBA and the University of Südwestfalen, Germany, was held in the Medrano premises of UTNBA’s School of Engineering. Around 50 people attended the conference, which included students and teachers from both countries.

The opening speech was delivered by Eng. Andrés Bursztyn, Vice-dean of UTNBA and Dr. Frank Maas, his counterpart from the University of Südwestfalen. “We hope that in addition to learning from the exchange with our students, you like Argentina and are motivated to study,” said Bursztyn and added: “for us, the exchange generated is very important, since teachers also learn from the students: it’s a 360-degree relationship.”

To conclude, Bursztyn affirmed: “We are going through significant changes in the teaching-learning methodology. The Higher Education model in the world is going through this change issue. It is not about incorporating teaching technology but about adapting the teaching and pedagogical model at the pace of technological progress.”

The first panel was entitled “The department of technology and business management of South Westfalia University,” in charge of Alisa Behrendts, an FH Südwestfalen student.

She was followed by Julius Dammeier, also an FH Südwestfalen student, with the talk on “Document Management Systems in German SMEs”.

Then, Eng. Sebastián Pinto, from UTNBA, delivered a presentation entitled “Experiences on the professional practice program in recovered factories”.

Finally, Judith Lehman, director of the DAAD Argentina Office, gave a talk entitled “Argentina-Germany Exchange possibilities: the DAAD program”.

 “The conference was a success. The student attendees participated actively during the presentations, showing great interest in the topics discussed, -said Eng. Sebastián Pinto, teacher and Graduates’ Representative of the Industrial Engineering Department-. The presentation on DAAD was very useful for those students interested in going on an exchange trip. The German teachers were grateful for the warm welcome and expressed their interest in keeping in contact with the School, since they come from a University oriented to field work, similar to UTN.”