1,000 students from the Faculty of Building Services Engineering will have the opportunity to use a brand new cutting edge laboratory financed by Honeywell.
Honeywell is a global Fortune 100 software-industrial company with technologies that help everything from aircraft, buildings, manufacturing plants, supply chains, and workers become more connected to make our world smarter, safer, and more sustainable.
The investment will provide the students the chance to get the expertise required by the 4.0 Industry and to be able to answer the demands on the labour market.
Amid the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution that is changing the way buildings are functioning, the partnership between the Bucharest Construction Engineering University and Honeywell world developer of industrial engineering technologies, represents a new step forward for Romania to become one of the most important technology hubs for smart buildings in Europe.
The two partners have inaugurated the new cutting edge university laboratory on Wednesday, which will serve 1,000 students and that will allow them to test, simulate and enforce various technologies and systems that are now necessary so that inter-connected building should efficiently function. The students will also full access to the latest IoT technologies that will help them for an engineering career, in line with the 4.0 industry.
“Students can test the knowledge acquired in school on a range of equipment, from those on fire safety, building management, on systems of energy efficiency and outcome based services, thus combining the academic training with the practical exercise,” said professor engineer Sorin Burchiu, the dean of the Building Services Engineering Faculty.
The new facility is the third university lab put into service by Honeywell this year, after the previous two at the Electrotechnical Faculty and at the Automation and Computers Faculty within the Polytechnic University in Timisoara.
Dean Dorin Burchiu said that laboratory at the Building Services Engineering Faculty is inter-connected to the other ones in Bucharest and Timisoara, saying that this „university collaboration will be very helpful in the future” in integrating the new technologies.
Honeywell is one of the top technology employers in Romania, with 26% of its employees coming from the Polytechnic University and from the Construction Engineering University in Bucharest. The company intends to increase the percentage in the upcoming years and to provide more and more graduates with the opportunity to work here.
„The engineer of the future needs a wide range of skills that should allow him visualise and then develop technologies that combine hardware, software and data analysis in order to make the world more safer, smarter, more productive and sustainable”, said Ronald Binkofski, Honeywell President for Central and Eastern Europe.
He stated that through this partnership, the company wants to make sure that Romania is continuing to train technology experts able to support both the internal market as well as other industrial sectors in the world.
“Science laboratories can be very successful, but they can also be a failure. It is the responsibility of those who use the laboratory to make the best of them and what I’d love to encourage you is to think much bigger than the room, de devices and the connectivity to software, look beyond that, look at what it can be a source of innovation, which is relevant to the local market in Romania, to the market in Central and Eastern Europe to which I am particularly connected to, but also to the world market. We encourage you to think in this direction, for the great things begin from small places,” Binkofski.
“Today’s world is moving to two parallel worlds, the physical world that we are standing now, where there are good devices generating data, but the data is moving to the second world, a virtual one. And these two worlds are co-existing. The biggest challenge for the future is on how will be the interactions between these two worlds at different levels of technology, but also at management level. I really would like that this laboratory should innovate things,” the Honeywell representative concluded.
In her turn, Cleo Cabuz, former VP of Engineering for Honeywell Industrial Safety/Honeywell Life Safety for the last 12 years, and now a Vice President for Technology and Partnerships for Honeywell’s Safety and Productivity Solutions division, has also attended the lab’s inauguration event.
“Engineering and technologies are not voted, are not selected through referendums, but they have huge influence on societies, if we think how the 20th century was influenced by technology and engineering…think of electricity, of cars and airplanes, of nuclear power, Internet.
It’s going to be the same in the 21st century, engineering and technologies will continue to have a huge impact on the society. But it’s going to be different than in the 20th century, as the focus will be on sustainability, on continuation of life on the planet, on safety and security, on health, on the well being of society.
We are fortunate that Honeywell is aligned to all this vectors of sustainability, safety and security of life on the planet.
The entire thing if controlling the environment, it’s about comfort, energy efficiency, so through this lab we have to opportunity to say something about the future, for the students, for the entire economic environment in Romania,” Cabuz stated.
Speaking of her 23-year experience within Honeywell she told students that this type of opportunity could be available to all of them.
“A word for the students, I started my career in Honeywell 23 years ago as an engineer, leaving Romania and moving to the United States. Honeywell was not yet present in Romania at that time, so I was relocated by the company to the US. During these 23 years, I had tremendous opportunities that somebody could dream of, working amid advanced research, on some of the most exciting topics, advancing in my career from the engineer status to becoming a manager and vice president. And I think all this is available to you all, and joining such a company would mean you get to know what’s important in the world”.
Students will be able to design smart cities and buildings within the laboratory, through technologies that can expand the lifespan of the equipment, to predict energy consumption of the buildings, to prevent disturbances, which will enable a fast prevention intervention in case of critical events. Students will also simulate physical security situations in the field.
The faculty’s representatives also announced on this occasion that a master’s degree programme on fire security is available at the faculty starting this year. The largest smart fire detector, made by Honeywell in Lugoj, can prevent false fire alarms and manage fire security more properly.
The technology laboratory is sponsored by Honeywell Hometown Solutions, the company’s social responsibility programme, which aims for a sustainable impact on the communities in five key sectors: science and mathematics, family safety and security, conservation and humanitarian aid.