OSKAR’S SCHOLARSHIP FOR SECOND TIME

This year will mobile operator Oskar provide CZK 1 million for the second annual Oskar Scholarship. Receiving a Oskar Scholarship is contingent upon the completion of special projects, studies, or research reports from the field of telecommunications and fields associated with informatics, electronics, or computer graphics. Due to great interest on the part of students, the deadline for submitting applications for the first selection round is 28 February 2005.

The goal of the Oskar Scholarship is to support exceptional college students, increase their specialized knowledge, expand instruction in the area of telecommunications services, and support cooperation between students and the Research and Development Centre (RDC) at ČVUT (Czech Institute of Technology) in Prague. Although the scholarship program is open to students at all types of colleges and thus to applicants in nearly all fields, the priority area of RDC's activities remains mobile communications and technical fields associated with communications. Therefore, when selecting applicants, the Steering Committee and the Selection Committee will consider whether submitted projects contribute to research, innovation, development, or heightened expertise in the following fields: wireless telecommunications technology, mobile technology applications, informatics, and computer graphics and design.

"The Oskar Scholarship brings possibilities for personal realization for students working on interesting projects. In the commercial sphere most new graduates have a chance to work only on not very interesting things. If they want to more deeply engage their own inventiveness, most of them encounter problems with financing," says Ota Herm, a 5th year student in the Electrical Technology department at ČVUT.

"The Oskar Scholarship and working at the RDC gave me motivation for further studies on an issue that interests me. Thanks to the stipend I had a chance to meet with interesting people like the manager of the development company Tim or the rector of Universidad Nacional Mayor de Engenieria in Peru," adds Martin Orlich, a doctoral candidate at the Electrical Technology department at ČVUT. "Working at the Research Development Center helped me widen my examination of the issue of designing applications based on mobile or network technologies. I don't know if I could have been able to focus on such an issue immediately after my graduation. Another important factor in working at the center as a GuRu is supervision of scholarship winners, attempts to retain a working team, and good work enthusiasm. During this work I learned that it is in no way simple to coordinate and motivate a team in a way that the strength of the team is not lost," says Zbyněk Novák, a post-graduate student at FEL ČVUT.

A student who meets the requirements for the awarding of a scholarship, submits a completed application by the deadline, is recommended by the selection committee of a given program, goes through a personal interview, and is selected by the Steering Committee of the Research and Development Center. New candidates are selected every 3 months with fixed deadlines for submitting applications. Approaching deadlines for submitting applications are 1 June and 1 October 2005.

For more information on the Oskar Scholarship visit www.oskar.cz/stipendium. Information about Research Development Center you find on www.rdc.cz.