On Friday, July 10, at 3 p.m. on the Facebook page of Riga Technical University (RTU) Riga Business School, a webinar «Training of the academic and scientific staff of Latvia for the new technological reality» will be organized. The webinar will inform how, in the next three years, with the support of the Latvian government at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, high-skilled academic staff will be trained, academic staff that will be able to conduct lectures for both information technology (IT) students and those who study in other areas, but who will also need IT expertise in the future.
The first fourteen academic staff members from RTU, the University of Latvia (UL) and Riga Stradiņš University (RSU) have already developed their knowledge in the academic year 2019/20 at the University at Buffalo, by learning how to elaborate IT courses, mastering interdisciplinary and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) teaching methods, as well as skills in the management and supervision of student projects. This year, the Latvian government has allocated €3 million to be used for training of another 35 academic staff members in the United States by 2023.
Academic staff members who have already studied in the United States put their knowledge into teaching students of the study programme «Computer Science and Organizational Technologies» that was created last year, which trains high-level information technology (IT) specialists – potential company managers who will build leadership in Latvia and the Baltic region in the IT field in the future. The study programme was developed by RTU, the UL and the University at Buffalo in cooperation with the public administration and the private sector. The program is administered by RTU Riga Business School. This was the first time in the history of Latvia, when the Ministry of Education and Science (MES), the Ministry of Economics (ME) and the banking and IT industry contributed to the new programme with funding for a specific purpose, in support of the development of the study programme and the improvement of the knowledge of the academic staff.
In the webinar Professor of RTU Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology (FCSIT) Marina Uhanova, Head of the UL Cyber-Physical Systems Laboratory Krišjānis Nesenbergs and Head of RSU Department of Information Systems Uldis Doniņš will tell about skills acquired in the United States and how new knowledge has helped with students in Latvia. MES Parliamentary Secretary Reinis Znotiņš, EM Deputy State Secretary Raimonds Aleksejenko, as well as the US Embassy Cultural Affairs Officer Rebecca Satterfield will share the findings on the return on state investment. Moreover, Jeffrey Errington, Deputy Dean of the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, will discuss academic staff member training planned for the next academic year, while the student’s opinion on the newfound knowledge will be provided by Jēkabs Solovjovs, a 2nd year student at RTU FCSIT.
The webinar will be English and it will be hosted by the Director of RTU Riga Business School Jānis Grēviņš. During the webinar, it will also be possible to ask questions and get answers to them.
