RIT Croatia students present at the 5th Javantura conference in Zagreb

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On February 17th, Zagreb hosted the 5th International Java community conference in Croatia. Organized by Croatian Java User Association (HUJAK), this evet has grown into one of the biggest Java community conferences in this part of Europe. HUJAK's intention with the conference is to "present a variety of topics interesting to a wide range of attendees and to encourage an exchange of experiences as well as establish firmer connections inside the community sharing similar interests". So, this year Javantura gathered 300 participants and hosted 25 sessions.

Over the past several years, RIT Croatia has been participating in the conference via its faculty and staff, but this year we were represented by our students as well. Leo Bach and Hrvoje Grgić study IT / Web and Mobile Computing at RIT Croatia. Hrvoje says this was his first encounter with a conference of that type but a great experience nonetheless: "I feel very honored that I was offered this opportunity by my mentors Dr. Mihaljević and Dr. Radovan. They did a great job organizing this conference, including us and helping us with the overall preparations. Since Leo and I shared a presentation time slot, we did it in two parts. My part was about the performance comparison of garbage collectors in Java 9. This was a great experience in many ways. Firstly, I have never had the opportunity to present my research in a room full of industry professionals. Secondly, I used this opportunity to network with other speakers at the conference. My field of interest is both project management and software development. I find both aspects challenging as they require creative ideas, organized planning and variety of soft skills. I considered RIT Croatia to be a good opportunity because the program offered dual degrees, and my experiences over the last four years are highly positive."

Their professor and the Area Head for the program, Dr. Kristina Marasović was very happy with the quality of their presentation & content. When asked to comment on it, she was very clear: "They made us proud!"