Winner of shipbuilding scholarship
Panel discussion on competence and recruitment.
Student and employee, Igor Pekarskiy, at Finnøy Gear & Propeller was announced and honored as this year's winner of a scholarship from the Norwegian Shipbuilders' Fund for research and education.
Federation of Norwegian Industries is the largest national association in the Norwegian Confederation of Business and Industry (NHO). Every year they organize the Shipyard Conference, which is often referred to as the maritime industry's most important meeting and socializing place in Møre og Romsdal county, with over 400 business players in the hall. The conference took place on 1-2 November 2022 in Ålesund and offered a fresh update on the market development for the overall maritime industry.
Ahead of this year's shipyard conference, the Federation called for candidates to receive scholarships from the Shipbuilders' Fund for research and education, which is managed by the board of the Maritime Industry Association. The purpose is to promote the education of the Federations of Norwegian Industries member companies employees who are educated from skilled workers to engineers with bachelor's or master's degrees. Based on an overall assessment of Igor Pekarski's professional knowledge and personal skills in combination with a well-completed professional test, it was decided by the management to nominate him.
Igor Pekarskiy has completed the prestigious technical and general subjects (TAF) education program at Haram Secondary School. He has been an apprentice at Finnøy Gear & Propeller since the autumn of 2017, leading up to a professional test in the CNC machining subject in the summer of 2021 with the top grade, in addition to obtaining special study skills. In the same year, he started a 5-year master's degree in cybernetics and robotics at NTNU in Trondheim. It has been helpful in production planning that, after he switched to being a full-time student, he has demonstrated great working capacity and worked in production during public holidays.
Igor was invited to participate in a panel debate on competence and recruitment during the conference, and was pleasantly surprised when he was announced as the winner of a scholarship of NOK. 25,000 over the speaker. His colleagues in the room were less surprised since he stood out early in the business as being both willing to learn, knowledgeable, and capable of getting to grips with professional issues on his own. Igor's manager, Jan-Olof Karlsson, is very proud of him. Jan-Olof considers the scholarship scheme to be a useful measure in the sector to help increase the proportion of skilled workers who choose higher education, as they are facing a possible shortage of engineers with practical understanding and work experience.