As we transition into a new academic year, I find myself reflecting on an exceptionally vibrant and transformative summer for the European Society for Engineering Education. It has been a season defined by deep collaboration, strategic dialogue, and shared growth. Over the past few months, I have had the privilege of representing SEFI at three pivotal European engineering events, each highlighting a crucial pillar of our mission to advance engineering education.
Prof. Zbyněk Škvor, a professor at the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU), received the Leonardo da Vinci Medal, the highest distinction SEFI can bestow, for his outstanding contribution to engineering education.
He was nominated by the SEFI Board of Directors and received this award from SEFI president Emanuela Tilley at the the 2026 SEFI Annual Conference.
Early in his career as an educator and researcher (immediately following the political changes in Czechoslovakia in 1989) Zbyněk Škvor was one of the three founders of the IEEE Czechoslovak Section. In doing so, he enabled the Czech and Slovak technical community to gain faster access to professional literature in English and accelerated the development of contacts with the international technical community all over the world. This represented a significant contribution to the advancement of engineering education not only in the former Czechoslovakia, but in some other Central European countries as well.
Subsequently, Prof. Škvor served the electrical engineering community for several terms as Chair of the IEEE Czechoslovakia Section and as a member of the IEEE Region 8 Committee for Europe and Africa. He coordinated Region 8 Voluntary Contribution Fund, helping engineers from less rich countries to travel to technical conferences.
Since 1990, Zbyněk Škvor has pioneered computer and internet support of student autonomous work in engineering education. He has developed systems that distributed individualised tasks, automatically checked their replies and provided hints guiding to correct results over e-mail, later www.
Zbyněk Škvor was also active in academia, holding significant academic positions at CTU, including the position of Acting Rector. In all of these roles, he consistently championed the development of engineering education. Through his work, he also fostered international relations and cooperation between CTU and numerous technical universities worldwide. For example, he initiated the involvement of CTU in the EuroTeQ alliance of technical universities.
From 2017 to 2024, he served as a member of the SEFI Board of Directors.
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