Information for students

The twelfth year of the competition is starting. The project will be carried out in co-operation with Brno city municipality.

Information regarding the current year

If you are interested in participating in the 12th course of this competition (2022/2023 academic year), you can find all the necessary information here. In September 2022, signing up for the eleventh year of the competition will begin. The project is implemented in the co-operation with the Brno city municipality (the project is supported in the form of subsidy). There will be three teams set up and these teams will work on one topic set by the city. After the teams will be set up, official launch of the project will be held (end of year 2022). The project is designed especially for full-time students of Masaryk University, the University of Technology and the Mendel University in Brno. If you attend another universities in these cities and you are interested in the project, please write to the following e-mail address: kacetlovahelena@gmail.com, we will be happy to find a way to include you among the candidates for membership within the teams. There is no limit for the year of study or field you study.

Signing students into the project

If you are interested in participating in the project, i.e. trying to get a place in a team during the begin of the autumn term, then write on kacetlovahelena@gmail.com and she will handle it with you. The students, who have participated in the previous project courses, may register again and try to apply for the team positions.

Brief information

The aim of the competition is to give students the space for creative work in interesting inter-university and inter-faculty teams. The resulting team work will be evaluated at the end of the competition and the best team members will receive a very worthwhile prize.

The pilot course took place in the 2011/2012 academic year with nine teams. Then, as an EU project, this student competition took place in the 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 academic years, when more than 30 teams were built each year. Subsequently, there was a small version with three teams in autumn 2014. In 2015/2016, there was a version within the city of Brno, when nine teams were compiled and outside the competition form, there were two more teams for complementary topics. In the 2016/2017, 2017/2018, 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 years, usually six teams were compiled, three teams led by lecturers from Brno and three under the guidance of lecturers from Bratislava. In 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 three teams in Brno were set up.

During autumn, the members of competition teams are selected. The teams will consist of five to seven students from all faculties of the universities involved. Three selected teams will always be assigned to one competition topic. The topic will be been assigned in co-operation with the Brno city municipality. The topics are based on the Smart City concept and approach. All topics will focus on various interesting issues and some of the solutions found are likely to be implemented. Teamwork will be fully available to the cities and will also be published. During the autumn and spring term, the teams will work on their project and hand them over at the beginning of April. The best teams will receive a formal award as well as a reward for the work. For successful completion of the spring term of this specific project, you’ll also gain credits at some of the involved universities (at MU it is a voluntarily chosen subject, at Mendel U. it may be recognised as a practice, etc., depending on your school and study field).

What can I gain?

• You can participate in a multi-disciplinary team work, i.e. a team composed of people with a different study focus. This is a form of experience that employers very much appreciate in almost any area and it makes sense to mention it in your CV.
• You can invest your energy and talent into working on something practical, i.e. issues in the city where you usually live or study. The cities will use the outcome of your work for their needs in the creation of city development concepts.
• At some of the universities, you can also gain some credits for your work or recognition of practice (depending on the conditions of individual schools and faculties).
• You can also gain a formal award in the form of a participation certificate and the best teams will also receive a reward for completing their winning work.

What is going to be your task?

If you are interested in participating in the competition and want to try to get into one of the teams, first of all it is necessary to register per email in the first weeks of the autumn term.

The project is accessible to all students of full-time Bachelor's, Master's and Doctor's study programs of all faculties of MU, TUB and Mendel University (and possibly other universities, after agreement).

Teaching in the project will take place in a block form, i.e. according to the agreement with your lecturers. Some parts of these lessons will be common to all three teams on each topic, others will be in the form of consultations for one team only. The obligation to attend these lessons will not apply to individual students, but to a certain number of members from one team. So there is no need to be afraid of these duties, you will be able to share these duties within your team, and the lecturers will also try to adjust the time of the meetings to your current time capabilities. In addition to the lecturer, you will also meet representatives from the city as well as consultants, who can provide you with information and knowledge on the topics you are working on. To complete this project, it’s necessary to create and hand-over the teamwork developed in a sufficient quality. In May, the evaluation committee will select the best work for given topic. A ceremonial announcement of the results will be held, attended by the representatives of all partners, and they will hand-over the formal awards to the best teams. The selected awarded work will need to be completed in May with feedback from the evaluators, and a specified amount of money will be paid out to the members of these teams.

This whole project is built on your willingness and interest. We hope that you are interested in the parameters of this project and the competition and that you would like to try out everything mentioned here.

Detailed information

In the autumn term, firstly teams and their leaders will be selected. Whether or not you would like to apply for a team leader’s position is purely up to you. It will definitely be an interesting and prestigious position. You can try team management and gain some interesting experience for your future work. If you want to apply for this position, just write it in your application email.

Once the competition has been set-up and launched, teams will then be provided with introduction documents regarding their topics. Mainly in the spring teaching part of the term, there will be an assignment and subsequent creation of teamwork, supplemented by a block form of teaching (partly used for consultations and supervision by lecturers, partly to share information or meetings with experts in the given field). The extent of how the team will create their work is left to themselves and their leaders. It is clear that you can share the participation in a block form of teaching as well as various parts of work on your subject matter. Teamwork will be handed out at the beginning of April.

Tell your friends

If you have friends from other faculties, let them know so you can have the opportunity to eventually meet them in the team.