On the 29^th of March, the week-long International Week of Kaunas University of Applied Sciences has started, the theme of which this year is “Collaboration for Future: from Technology to Person”. On the first day of the event, special attention was paid to the topics of leadership, cooperation, technology and artificial intelligence, and the presentation session ended with a virtual tour of Kaunas and a quiz prepared by students of Tourism and Hotel Management of the Faculty of Business.

During the event, Paulius Baltrušaitis, the Director of Kaunas University of Applied Sciences, drew attention to the importance of internationality, the opportunities opened by the international week together with social partners from all over the world to carry out joint activities, implement international projects and exchanges. Meanwhile, Jolanta Valiaugienė, Head of the International Relations Department, was glad that although this year’s International Week is taking place virtually, the event received a lot of interest – almost 200 participants from 25 countries signed up for it.

What personal qualities will be important in the future

Noora Kahra from Tampere University of Applied Sciences, who delivered the presentation “Importance of Internationalizing and Collaboration”, pointed out the importance of soft skills. Soft skills such as empathy, creativity and teamwork are still often overlooked. These are skills that we need to start paying much more attention to,” said N. Kahra during the presentation, adding that developing these skills is also the responsibility of higher education institutions.

“I firmly believe that the participation of staff and lecturers in these activities also benefits students in many ways. Internationality is not just an exchange, it is a much wider opportunity, but the involvement of all is essential,” noted N. Kahra and encouraged everyone to get involved in international activities not only because of the development of personal skills, but also because of the example that can persuade others to do the same.

Justina Klyvienė, the founder of the “Future Leadership” Innovation Laboratory and the co-founder of “Alter State”, participated in the discussion “Innovation Leadership”, where she shared her insights on innovation leadership.

“Innovation leadership, in my opinion, can be divided into three levels. First, it’s personal level. This is exactly what a person has to do. The second level is related to the team – that is to say, what a team has to do if they want to be innovative. The third level is organizations and what organizations need to do to be innovative,” said J. Klyvienė.

“On a personal level, a person should be a 360-degree thinker. It has been observed that those with a wide range of interests and not limited to one or a few areas are more successful, better able to notice what is changing in the world, and this can adapt to their team or organization,” said J. Klyvienė, the guest of the discussion, and pointed out that empathy and creativity are also very important qualities for innovation leadership.

How technology is changing our lives

Elijus Čivilis, Head of the Lithuanian Railways (LTG) information technology center LTG Digital, delivered the presentation “Technologies Today. What Happens Next?”, which spoke about technological phenomena, explained the concept of digital transformation and the role of technologies. During the report, E. Čivilis pointed out that although technology may seem incomprehensible and even unrelated to people, it is actually the opposite – it is scientific knowledge applied in everyday life.

“In the past, we had many institutions that were not interconnected, had unequal IT progress and focused on individual value creation. Today, we have interconnected digital platforms that bring together a variety of services. As a result, you should also think about how to stay in touch with your suppliers, how to do business, because today it is difficult to distinguish who is a customer and who is a seller, because everything is closely related,” said E. Čivilis.

Professor, The Dean of Vytautas Magnus University Faculty of Informatics Tomas Krilavičius studied the topic of artificial intelligence, its application possibilities, benefits and risks in the report “AI Adoption: Still Too Early or Already Too Late”.

“Narrow artificial intelligence is currently very common and used in a variety of fields. So the main question should not be about the application of artificial intelligence – it is already being done. However, from another perspective, there are still many areas where it is still not applied – areas that require more creativity. I think that it is certainly not too early to apply artificial intelligence in these areas, on the contrary, now is the right time to do so, but in doing so, the potential risks must also be assessed,” T. Krilavičius, a member of the Lithuanian Artificial Intelligence Association, prof., said during the presentation.

We thank the speakers and participants of the International Week and if you have not registered yet, you can do so by writing an email to erasmus@go.kauko.lt, indicating the name of the area you want to participate in.