At the end of the school year, the MyMachine Expo Ceremony is the time and place to celebrate the results of many months of co-creation, perseverance, and resilience.

This year, MyMachine Slovakia made it into a triple event: on June 18 in Košice and on June 21st in Piešťany. In addition, an exclusive industry networking event was held alongside the Piešťany Exposition.

In the TUKE University Library in Košice, children from five classes from elementary schools, students from five teams from secondary vocational schools and universities from eastern Slovakia met.

The speeches of the Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Jozef Živčák, and the Program Director of the Carpathian Foundation, Veronika Miškech Fričová, opened the ceremonial program. They were followed by awarding partner companies, faculties and secondary schools. Then, the authors of the ideas presented their inventions at the “children’s conference”, where, through interviews with the moderator, they explained how they perceived the process of designing and manufacturing their dream inventions.

At the Košice EXPE, children revealed the following prototypes: Pool House – a pool full of collapsible slides and play elements, Flying Bus – a bus model with propellers and a large helium balloon, Book Stand – page turner, every bookworm’s dream, OTIS – optimistic therapeutic intelligent seat a Kolomko – a funny cone that walks and talks.

MyMachine EXPO Piešťany

Five primary school classes, five teams of students from secondary vocational schools and five teams of university students from western and central Slovakia met at the MyMachine EXPO in Elektrárni Piešťany. The chairman of the TTSK, Jozef Viskupič, took over the patronage of the event.

The event was opened by the speeches of the vice president of the Trnava self-governing region, Rastislav Mráz, the executive director of the Carpathian Foundation, Laura Dittel, and the administrator of the ZSE Foundation, Petr Bednár. After the following awards of the present partner companies, faculties and secondary vocational schools, the program continued with a children’s conference.

The children presented their dream inventions in interviews with the presenter: Jano Watering Can – garden clock with birdhouse, water mist and bubble blower, Hamster Swing – a swing not only for hamsters, with a built-in radio, Pet Machine – an application that will help with the care of pets, Neymar’s Field – a fun playing area for football players and Nufko-Football – table football with bunnies to control.

MyMachine mINgle

The MyMachine Slovakia team added a networking event for MyMachine supporters and fans. The event’s theme was innovation, so MyMachine mINgle participants could, in addition to the unveiling of children’s inventions at MyMachine EXPO, also enjoy inspiring lectures by two keynote speakers:

Mathieu Mottrie from the Belgian company Creax—one of the very first supporters of MyMachine from its early days—shared his recipe for creating future-proof innovation strategies in large manufacturing industries. Mathieu is a leader in innovation, known for his contributions to connecting technology and creativity. In his work, he uses cross-industry research to accelerate and de-risk innovation processes, arguing that most of our problems have already been solved by someone else in another industry.

Peter Štefanko, senior human resources manager at Magna PT, explained his approach to innovation, which also involves cooperating with the MyMachine program.

MyMachine mINgle has connected companies, universities, and high school founders because we believe that the path to innovation leads through cooperation and the search for synergies between different sectors.

These events got good media attention: here’s the regional television coverage: