Reportage from Alumni Wednesdays in SS 2022

On 16 March 2022, a group of professional lectures for the summer semester within the project Alumni Wednesdays was launched by Mr Ladislav Jelen, representing the Coca-cola brand. The topic of the presentation was implementing returnable plastic bottles in the Czech Republic and following activities such as selling plastic material to third parties instead of producing new bottles.  Mr Jelen also compared countries where this mechanism has already been set up, with Germany coming out the best in terms of effectiveness. At the end Mr Jelen was receiving many questions from the audience and was able to answer them promptly with an ease.

Following presentation was held on 30 March by Mr Marek Rojíček, president of the Czech Statistical Office. In his lecture he addressed whether official statistical data is necessary and useful. At the beginning of the presentation Mr Rojíček outlined the differences between official statistics, including all data published by the government institutions and whose methodology may slightly differ, and the State Statistical Service which must meet strict criteria and follow the law without exception. In addition, the lecturer touched the topic of processing statistical data by a research agency that has been given a task from the management of a company. Namely, “Make it work the way we need it to work.” In such cases, questions regarding independence and credibility of such data raised.

On 13 April, Mr Josef Řezníček, founder of the company Včeliště, presented a lecture dealing mainly with the topic of Internet cookies. Specifically short text files stored on the computer’s hard drive, which are mainly used to remember certain options, such as user logins, etc. Mr Řezníček outlined how this data is further handled, who can use it and for what purpose. He also explained to the audience in a very interesting way the difference between the importance of cookies for a normal user and for marketing purposes.

On 27 April was presenting Mr Tomáš Nidetzký, Vice-Governor of the Czech National Bank, and Mr Martin Mandel, Professor at the Department of Monetary Theory and Policy at the Faculty of Finance and Accounting at VŠE. These two gentlemen discussed inflation for the year 2022, so it is certainly not surprising that the lecture was attended by a record number of people, both in person and online. These two presenters split their lecture into two parts, with each speaking separately, followed by a lively debate where they were answering together. The engaging presentation covered both the history and the origins of inflation, as well as its predictions for this year. It should be noted that the estimate is not very favourable.

On Wednesday 11 May, Mr Libor Hykeš from KPMG presented the issue of profitable solutions for customers and employees in large banks. Despite the relatively lower attendance, Mr Hykeš managed to captivate all the audience with his engaging talk and polished presentation. He also presented a specific project, a detailed description of its implementation in practice and an evaluation of the results, which gave everyone the opportunity to gain a deeper insight into the topic. The lecturer also handled playful questions from the audience and answered all of them with a smile.

Mr David Peška, a member of the Alumni Advisory Board, gave a lecture on May 25 about the role of today’s leadership. His interaction with the audience was great and the attendees were constantly involved in the presentation. The most interesting part of the lecture was probably the description of a person who most often rise to the top in corporate leadership. It was a first born, above average intelligent, energetic, and an active man. It naturally elicited mixed reactions from the audience, but the speaker soon explained that it was the most common model, not necessarily the best, as he himself did not consider fitting in this description. The lecture was very inspiring, and the audience was leaving in a pleasant mood.

We look forward to the next lectures starting in September. More details can be found here.