Technology at Service of Health Care and Education
11/03/2015Moderated by Gunther Fehlinger, President of the Austrian-Kosovar Association, the conference “Austrian-Kosovar Days 2015” has continued with discussions focusing on the e-healthcare and e-education, as well as other advantages that the information technology offers in all fields.
Mr. Olegas Niaksu from Lithuania spoke on the application of the e-technology in healthcare services. He presented a number of experiences from the e-healthcare in Albania, and especially in some countries of Africa where he was involved in the implementation of such projects.
“About 17 years ago we started in Africa a registration of the patients in the hospital systems. The citizens expected more efficient healthcare services and better care for those living in the rural areas. What we tried to do in Africa — because contagious diseases there are quite frequent — was creating centers for the prevention of diseases, and not curing centers,” Niaksu said.
“Investments made by different countries helped creating an overloaded network and to have in place a hospital system which now connects not only the cities but the states as well.”
Edmond Hajrizi: Education Is Solution to Problems
Inviting UBT President Edmond Hajrizi to take the floor, Mr. Fehlinger also congratulated him on the successes in the football robot games at which the UBT came first in a competition with many universities from all of Europe. “You have made an extraordinary achievement, you won the first place in robotics,” Fehlinger said.
Rector Hajrizi focused in particular on the spread of internet. He said 80 per cent of the territory of Kosovo is covered by internet network, which for the UBT as a higher education institute of technology is very important news.
“As a new state, we have experts in different fields though not in big numbers. We want to contribute in this respect. As an organization of technology, we are looking for the best; we are seeking to find the best things and to produce young experts. We started in 2001 while now in 2015 we are the biggest school of technology in the region. The figure of 800 students in the departments of technology is quite a big and this is a great potential. We are the first in the Balkans to have been certified with the excellence prize and we have received other certification for quality by the ISO. These prizes are not only to be shown but are a proof of the work. We have programs for studies and we consider this as a responsibility for educating of the young people,” Mr. Hajrizi said.
He went on to say that the professional development is also done through the CISCO course sand now Microsoft and many others. Another aspect of the development involves higher standards of getting closer to the leaders of the world institutions of education. “Our campus is known all over the Balkans as one of the biggest and with very good conditions for students,” said among others Edmond Hajrizi.
Jovce Plastinovski, a representative of Microsoft in Macedonia, also spoke at the conference. “Transparency is something we have looked for in our projects for years. We have removed passwords in the webpages of official services and when this happened they told us: You are ruining your own application. But, our answer was: Let us try it. We managed to defeat corruption, while the people were free to apply for jobs. We managed to create applications for the business registration from laptops, mobile phones, and other technology devices,” he said.
Mrs. Elizabeth Compestrini offered different examples of health systems. She advised that in April, together with some of her colleagues, she would hold another seminar on the e-healthcare.
Busek: Society’s Challenge Is Education
Dr. Erhard Busek, President of the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe and former Minister of Education of Austria, noted that education was one of the major challenges of the society. “We have to admit that we lack resources — the only gift that we have is the brain,” Busek said.
According to him, education is a precondition for the development of the society, noting that public campaigns for education are necessary. “We are living in a world where the conditions surrounding us are changing. The mobile phones are making it possible for us to communicate with the whole world, to express our ideas, and to exchange our experiences. The emergence of internet enables us to connect with each other and this is in favor of the human beings,” Busek said.
He said we are living in a global market in which the competition is evident. In order to understand each other, we need to first listen, he said. “What impresses me in Kosovo is that we have forums and different discussions on every program. I consider these discussions to be very important,” Dr. Busek said.
He also spoke about the role of the academic staff in advancing the knowledge. “We are making efforts to advance professors through training and different activities. We have sufficient budget but what we lack is educated people and everything is linked to education and schooling,” Busek said.
Blerim Rexha, a lecturer of the Prishtina University, said the new generations were changing the world, by focusing on the use of the internet and social networks. “Internet does not involve only posting things on the social networks but also provided for surfing on different important webpages,” Mr. Rexha said. He also spoke about the functioning of the information technology at the service of education and healthcare.
Elizabeth Schleicer, an e-commerce expert, said she was privileged and honored to share with the students and academic staff of the UBT the facts and data on the world market. In her presentation, she focused on the data on companies, values of consumers, opportunities that Kosovo has, and the way e-commerce operates.
During the debate on the role of technology in the field of education, UBT Rector Dr. Edmond Hajrizi presented the data on the implementation of technology in the institution he leads. In the field of education at the UBT, he mentioned: e-education, e-library, e-administration, e-partnership, e-quality, e-schedule, e-participation, e-tests, e-syllabuses, UBT staff and students. In the field of professional education, he mentioned ICT Academy, CISCO, Management, business, and e-staff. In the field of researches he listed the e-publications, e-documents, internet, and UBT radio.
Hajrizi also spoke about the importance of the partnership that the UBT has with other universities, including on the Erasmus Mundus project, to which the UBT has become member of which provides for the students to get scholarships for studies abroad.