ICETA 2025

Presentation: Learning Reimagined - A journey beyond classrooms and textbooks

Learning has always been at the heart of human progress, yet the way we approach it is now undergoing a profound transformation. In an era defined by rapid change, limitless information, and unprecedented connectivity, education can no longer be confined to classrooms, textbooks, or rigid structures. Learning Reimagined is about envisioning a future where curiosity, creativity, and adaptability are the true cornerstones of knowledge.
This talk explores how the boundaries of learning are expanding beyond traditional methods, embracing technology, collaboration, and new ways of thinking. From immersive experiences that bring concepts to life, to personalized pathways shaped by data and artificial intelligence, to communities that share knowledge openly across cultures and generations. Education is being redefined as a living and evolving process.
At its heart, Learning Reimagined is about empowerment. It challenges us to see learning not as something we complete, but as something we carry with us throughout our lives, shaping who we are, how we connect with others, and what we contribute to the world. By nurturing curiosity, embracing diverse perspectives, and making learning accessible to all, we can inspire a generation that is not just prepared for the future, but capable of creating it.

Daniel Carruth, Ph.D. is Associate Director for Advanced Vehicle Systems at the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems (CAVS) and an Associate Research Professor at Mississippi State University. He earned his B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering and Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from Mississippi State University.
Dr. Carruth’s work bridges human factors, simulation, and intelligent systems to advance technology-enabled learning and research. He co-chairs the NATO AVT-408 research task group on modeling and simulation for autonomous systems and led an ASAM initiative to define standards for off-road vehicle simulation. His team at CAVS develops immersive and digital twin environments that integrate artificial intelligence, robotics, and human performance modeling to support research, training, and workforce development.
He has authored more than 150 publications in areas spanning virtual reality, human-autonomy interaction, and simulation-based education, with work appearing in Sensors, IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems, Transportation Research F, and Virtual Worlds. His research has been supported by the Department of Defense, NASA, USDA, and other federal agencies.
Dr. Carruth helped found the Summit on Advancing Modeling and Simulation for Autonomous Ground Vehicles (SAMS AGV) and continues to champion cross-disciplinary education and technology integration for next-generation engineering and training systems.

Presentation: Empowering Student Skill Development in Robotics Through Autonomous Research Engagement

Robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence are rapidly transforming the modern workforce, drawing increasing interest from students across disciplines. To prepare students for this evolving landscape, Mississippi State University has adopted a research-driven, project-based learning model that goes beyond traditional classroom instruction. This approach emphasizes active engagement through hands-on projects that cultivate industry-relevant technical skills. By introducing students to core Robot Operating System (ROS) libraries, the industry standard for developing autonomous systems, we provide them with the foundational tools needed to tackle real-world challenges. This paper presents key outcomes from two representative projects: a classroom interface initiative where student teams develop deployable control systems for autonomous platforms and a RC car-based project where students implement robust localization algorithms using LiDAR sensor data. These projects not only reinforce theoretical knowledge but also bridge the gap between academic learning and industrial practice, equipping students with the tools to thrive in a technology-driven future.

Gabriel Galgóci currently serves as Adviser to the Minister of Health of the Slovak Republic, focusing on national health policy, digitalization, innovation, and long-term healthcare reforms. Previously, he served as Director General of the Strategy Department at the Ministry of Economy, leading national strategies in innovation, digital economy, and industrial policy.
A graduate of the Slovak University of Technology and holder of a Project Management Master Certification from Stevens Institute of Technology (USA), he is pursuing doctoral research at the Technical University of Košice on digital transformation in the construction industry.
With over 25 years of management experience at AT&T, including as Slovakia Country General Manager, Gabriel has been recognized for his leadership and contributions to Slovakia’s innovation and digital ecosystem — named IT Personality of the Year (2018) and an AT&T Business Diamond Club honoree (2019).
He has served as President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Slovakia, Chairman of the Business Service Center Forum, and Chairman of AIslovakIA – Center for Artificial Intelligence, promoting collaboration between business, academia, and government.

Presentation: Smart Health Ecosystem: Connecting Policy, Technology, and People

The rapid digital transformation of healthcare is redefining how health systems operate, deliver services, and interact with citizens. Building a smart health ecosystem requires more than deploying new technologies—it demands a coherent policy framework, robust data infrastructure, and digitally skilled professionals who can translate innovation into better care.
Drawing on recent experiences from Slovakia’s ongoing health reforms, the session will explore how policy, technology, and people can be effectively aligned to create a sustainable and inclusive digital health ecosystem that improves health outcomes, enhances system efficiency, and empowers both healthcare professionals and patients in the digital era.

Jozef Hvorecký (*1946) graduated at the Comenius University in Bratislava and completed his PhD. at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow. During 55 years of his career, he lectured at 19 universities around in 12 countries – some rather exotic as Papua New Guinea, the United Arab Emirates, Macao, and Mexico. He has retired but works as a part-time researcher at the Ostrava University, Czech Republic., where he leads an ERASMUS+ project. His research is oriented to University Management, Information and Knowledge Management, Computer Education and E-learning. His current project discusses the application of 3D printing and modelling in training of teachers of primary and secondary school. He also writes books on popular science.

Presentation: Having Joy of STEAM Learning

Years ago, Donald Vanderberg stated goals of education: humanization, dialogue between generations, socialization leading to adulthood, preparation for citizenship, acquisition of knowledge, skills and values, training for workforce, and accommodating in the universe.
In our schools, educational methodologies of STEAM subjects fulfil these goals only partially. They primarily concentrate acquisition of knowledge and skills. The other aspects are addressed only occasionally.
In our paper, we discuss various ways of enhancing the missing components. The transformation must be not only careful and systematic; it must also be sensitive to children’s emotions. Strict mathematical thinking is an effective tool minimizing errors in conclusion making. At the same time, it is often too formal and emotionless; as such it is less effective due to its “dehumanized” form.
Below, we concentrate on building a “human face” of Math. We point to dichotomies between formal thinking, decision-making and common sense. One group of examples demonstrates risks of direct transfers of formal mathematical techniques to real-life situations. The other group presents applications of mathematics to arts and technology using 3D modelling and printing with 3D objects as the outcomes of students’ activities and/or teaching aids.
Such aberrations from traditional methodologies force mathematics to move out of worn paths. These and similar “deviations” allow learners to recognize and to study limits of formal methods and – due to their enjoyable and sometimes funny character and motivation to interpersonal communication – help them to lessen confusion and misunderstanding usually typical for reception of formal knowledge.

Gabriel Juhás is a full professor of Computer Science and an R4 leading researcher within a Next Generation EU project at Faculty of Informatics, Pan-European University Bratislava, Slovakia and a co-founder of NETGRIF company. Previously he was a full professor of Applied Computer Science at Institute of Computer Science and Mathematics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (FEI STU). Gabriel Juhás was the dean and the vice dean of FEI STU. He worked at several universities in Germany, namely at Technical University Berlin, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, where he received his habilitation. Previously, he was also a visiting PhD student at University of Aarhus in Denmark. His main research interests in theory are Petri nets and other models of concurrency. In the application area he focuses on business process management, process-driven programming, object-centric processes and low-code languages. He is co-author of an open-source low-code language Petriflow and co-author of NETGRIF low-code application development platform.

Presentation: Reuniting Data, Processes, and Forms: Petriflow Object-Centric Processes in the Age of AI

For decades, enterprise information systems have been designed around separation into layers - data models are defined independently of business processes, and user interfaces are treated as an afterthought. Yet in business reality, these dimensions are inseparable: a business object is not a static collection of attributes but an evolving entity whose identity, behavior, and representation form one holistic whole. This gap between how business understands reality and how IT models it has created what may be called the Great Divide of digital design.
This paper explores Object-Centric Processes (OCP) as a paradigm that reunites data, processes, and forms into a single coherent model of business reality. By treating objects as both carriers of information and drivers of behavior, OCP provides a natural bridge between conceptual understanding and executable system design. We illustrate this approach through the Petriflow language, which captures the state, lifecycle, and interactions of business objects in an integrated, model-driven way.
Finally, we look toward the Age of AI in business modeling - the emergence of vibe coding and AI assistants capable of translating natural-language business descriptions into executable Petriflow object-centric models. This fusion of human understanding and machine generation heralds a future where system design once again reflects the unity of the world it seeks to represent.

Lilla Korenova, PhD, is the acting Head of the Department of Didactics of Mathematics and Natural Science and the guarantor of the new study program 'Teaching for Primary Education – Mathematics and Informatics' at the Faculty of Education, Comenius University in Bratislava. She earned her PhD in Theory of Mathematics Education at Comenius University and obtained her Dozent degree in Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Debrecen, Hungary. Her research focuses on STEAM education, digital technologies in teaching, mathematics didactics, e-assessment, and e-learning. She has led or participated in several national and international projects supporting innovation in STEAM education. She has authored and co-authored numerous academic and professional publications and serves on editorial boards of international journals.

Presentation: Having Joy of STEAM Learning

Years ago, Donald Vanderberg stated goals of education: humanization, dialogue between generations, socialization leading to adulthood, preparation for citizenship, acquisition of knowledge, skills and values, training for workforce, and accommodating in the universe.
In our schools, educational methodologies of STEAM subjects fulfil these goals only partially. They primarily concentrate acquisition of knowledge and skills. The other aspects are addressed only occasionally.
In our paper, we discuss various ways of enhancing the missing components. The transformation must be not only careful and systematic; it must also be sensitive to children’s emotions. Strict mathematical thinking is an effective tool minimizing errors in conclusion making. At the same time, it is often too formal and emotionless; as such it is less effective due to its “dehumanized” form.
Below, we concentrate on building a “human face” of Math. We point to dichotomies between formal thinking, decision-making and common sense. One group of examples demonstrates risks of direct transfers of formal mathematical techniques to real-life situations. The other group presents applications of mathematics to arts and technology using 3D modelling and printing with 3D objects as the outcomes of students’ activities and/or teaching aids.
Such aberrations from traditional methodologies force mathematics to move out of worn paths. These and similar “deviations” allow learners to recognize and to study limits of formal methods and – due to their enjoyable and sometimes funny character and motivation to interpersonal communication – help them to lessen confusion and misunderstanding usually typical for reception of formal knowledge.

Angelika Schmid is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Education, Comenius University Bratislava, and a researcher at the University of Ostrava. Her research focuses on integrating digital technologies such as GeoGebra, augmented and virtual reality, and 3D printing into mathematics education. She explores how these technologies can enhance inquiry-based and constructivist learning in geometry courses for prospective teachers, aiming to develop their digital literacy and geometric thinking.

Presentation: Having Joy of STEAM Learning

Years ago, Donald Vanderberg stated goals of education: humanization, dialogue between generations, socialization leading to adulthood, preparation for citizenship, acquisition of knowledge, skills and values, training for workforce, and accommodating in the universe.
In our schools, educational methodologies of STEAM subjects fulfil these goals only partially. They primarily concentrate acquisition of knowledge and skills. The other aspects are addressed only occasionally.
In our paper, we discuss various ways of enhancing the missing components. The transformation must be not only careful and systematic; it must also be sensitive to children’s emotions. Strict mathematical thinking is an effective tool minimizing errors in conclusion making. At the same time, it is often too formal and emotionless; as such it is less effective due to its “dehumanized” form.
Below, we concentrate on building a “human face” of Math. We point to dichotomies between formal thinking, decision-making and common sense. One group of examples demonstrates risks of direct transfers of formal mathematical techniques to real-life situations. The other group presents applications of mathematics to arts and technology using 3D modelling and printing with 3D objects as the outcomes of students’ activities and/or teaching aids.
Such aberrations from traditional methodologies force mathematics to move out of worn paths. These and similar “deviations” allow learners to recognize and to study limits of formal methods and – due to their enjoyable and sometimes funny character and motivation to interpersonal communication – help them to lessen confusion and misunderstanding usually typical for reception of formal knowledge.

Miroslav Šimko works in a distribution and has been involved in the field of education and building secure architectures for data storage and management on the NetApp platform for more than 10 years. During this time, NetApp in Slovakia has gained many satisfied customers and the trust of companies in practically every sector - from industry, through financial institutions, the ISP sector, to educational institutions. Today, NetApp is considered the most secure data storage on the planet.

Presentation: NetApp – securely stored data

Secure data storage is the last layer of protection against cyber threats.
Proven resistance against ransomware or intentional sabotage, advanced management tools, native integration with cloud locations... these and other features make the NetApp platform the best destination for data storage and management. That is why most satisfied university customers in Slovakia trust it today, for example, the Technical University of Košice in its new supercomputer.

Peter Sinčák is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the Technical University of Košice (TUKE), Slovakia; he earned his PhD in Prague in 1992 and in 2001 became the first Professor of AI in Slovakia. In 1993 he spent four months at the University of Stirling, Scotland, and in 1994 he launched Slovakia’s first university subject titled “Neural Networks”. He is member of the Department of Cybernetics & AI at TUKE, with over 100 publications and editorial roles with Springer, IOS Press, and World Scientific. His invited and plenary/keynote talks span the USA (Kent State), Czech Republic (Academy of Sciences; Hradec Králové), Germany (Dortmund), Finland (Helsinki), Austria (Siemens Vienna), Hungary (Hungarian Academy of Sciences; Budapest), Poland (Częstochowa), Italy (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa), Hong Kong/China (Chinese University; Nanjing; Beijing Institute of Technology; USTC; Shanghai University of Technology), Japan (Tokyo Tech; Waseda; Kyushu Institute; Tsukuba; Toyota; Osaka Prefectural Univ.; ATII), and South Korea (KAIST). He is a Senior Member of IEEE and serves on the Advisory Board of the International Association for Computational Intelligence, founded by the Beijing Institute of Technology. His current interests include Large Neural Structures agents, and AI related challenges.

Presentation: Digital Intelligence and the Future of University Education: Co-Learning with Personal AI Agents

As chatbots and AI permeate classrooms, university education is shifting from content delivery to interactive cognition—where students, teachers, and intelligent systems co-create understanding in real time. Building on two decades of blended learning, the teacher is no longer the sole source of information but a designer of inquiry, orchestrating interactions among students, scholarly materials, and personal AI agents (PAIAs).
We envision a concrete model built on Digital Intelligence and PAIAs for every student and teacher. Grounded in Confucius’s idea that learning without thought is labor lost, and thought without learning is dangerous, the model centers how to think via three components: (1) a Reading-to-Questions (R2Q) pipeline that automates ingestion, claim distillation, contrastive sourcing, and tiered Socratic question generation; (2) agent-to-agent seminar orchestration where student and teacher PAIAs negotiate question agendas and produce “conflict maps” for dialogue; and (3) an AI-augmented blended-learning layer that couples online/in-person activities with human–agent partnerships to personalize preparation, discussion, and transfer tasks.
Our primary Key Performance Index (KPI) for learning is the quality of thinking—measured through reflective depth, reasoning robustness, question quality, transfer across domains, and synthesis velocity—tracked longitudinally for students and cohorts. Together, these elements transform reading into collaborative inquiry, scale rigorous discourse, and cultivate thinking humans ready for hybrid human–AI work.

Lenka Sokolová is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the Institute of Applied Psychology, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia.
She has been involved in research and practice of educational psychology focused on a variety of target groups from childhood to higher education and the continuous professional development of teachers. She worked as a school psychologist, primary and secondary education teacher, and parent educator. Her research interests include well-being and mental health in the school community, inclusive education from early childhood to higher education, school-based prevention and intervention, psychology learning and teaching, and teacher and psychologist education and training. Since 2009, research and teaching focus has been also on the use of digital technology in teaching, learning, and prevention.
She is a board member and former President of the European Federation of Psychology Teachers' Associations (EFPTA, www.efpta.org) and Secretary General of the European Society for Psychology Learning and Teaching (ESPLAT, www.esplat.org). She also served as a chair of the Slovak Association for the Teaching of Psychology and a member of the Board of Educational Affairs of the European Federation of Psychologist Associations (EFPA, www.efpa.eu). Currently, she is a member of the Slovak and international school research team of the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children study (HBSC, www.hbsc.org) and the coordinator of the team for digital well-being and prevention of the National Centre for Digital Transformation of Education (NDCTV, www.ncdtv.sk).
Websites:

• https://fses.uniba.sk/en/departments/institutes/institute-of-applied-psychology/people/lenka-sokolova/
• https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8535-5713

Presentation: The role of digital coordinators in supporting digital well-being in schools

As schools increasingly integrate technology into teaching and learning, the concept of digital well-being has become critical to fostering healthy, balanced, and safe digital environments for learners and teaching staff. This paper explores the emerging role of digital coordinators in supporting digital well-being in schools. Digital coordinators serve as key facilitators in implementing digital strategies and guiding responsible technology use. Their responsibilities often include training and supporting teachers, developing school strategies, monitoring digital trends, and ensuring that learners engage with digital tools in ways that do not harm their mental well-being and positive social interaction. Based on qualitative content analysis of group interviews with school digital coordinators, this study highlights how digital coordinators bridge the gap between technology integration and student well-being, advocating for a holistic approach to digital education. The findings underscore the need for clearly defined roles, ongoing professional development, and cross-disciplinary collaboration to empower digital coordinators as agents of change in cultivating digitally healthy school cultures. The support provided as a part of the National project “Digital Transformation of Education and School” (DiTEdu) reflects the needs expressed by the participants.