On New Year’s Eve the students and teachers of Odesa National Academy of Food Technologies received a unique present from one of the leaders of Ukrainian agrarian market, agricultural company NIBULON. The company presented four modern high-tech laboratories which will give an opportunity to master methods and technologies of grain quality control and automation of processes to control elevators and other elements of grain storage process and grain preparation for selling.
“In Ukraine nobody will be surprised at reequipment of the sponsored schools with modern computer technologies. Not forgetting its sponsored schools, NIBULON reaches a new level cooperating with core industrial universities of the country and reequipping the outdated laboratories with modern equipment of the world’s leading manufacturers”, announced NIBULON’s General Director, Hero of Ukraine Oleksiy Vadaturskyy during an opening of the laboratories.
According to him, such a step made by the company is an example how business takes care of the future of agrarian industry. “It is one of the guarantees of the company’s successful development. High level of educational laboratory equipment will involve young specialists in studying at the Academy, and so in future we will have first-class specialists who will apply their knowledge working for the high-tech company”, added Oleksiy Vadaturskyy.
During the opening day in the Academy there reigned NIBULON’s leadership spirit. Everybody was celebrating from professorial staff to students. According to Bogdan Yegorov, ONAFT rector, at present the level of technical equipment in these laboratories is higher than the level of equipment of major grain processing companies using such equipment in practice.
“In the grain quality laboratory the quality control technology corresponds to the world’s best standards. Certain types of equipment were manufactured specially for the Academy. In this laboratory there were implemented all stages of control existing in different companies, including in NIBULON. It is crucially important because students must know these principles. They will be able to acquire practical skills during the educational process. And the adaptation terms after graduation can be reduced”, stressed B.Yegorov. Besides, he added that the laboratories of automation of grain processing and storage reproduce the real production chains.
According to B.Yegorov, Ukrainian universities are 50 years behind industrial companies in equipment. “This gap constantly increases. As a result companies have to waste several years to train graduates so that they become first-class specialists being able to operate modern equipment”, notes ONAFT Rector. “Thanks to our graduate, NIBULON’s General Director, Hero of Ukraine Oleksiy Vadaturskyy, the situation will be different in our Academy. Having such equipment and devices, introduced here, we are not running after industry we are in advance of it. Because our laboratories have such types of equipment which are not even present in the industrial enterprises”, mentioned B.Yegorov.
According to ONAFT Rector, Oleksiy Vadaturskyy himself suggested to help our Academy to raise the level of practical training of students who can work for companies, including at NIBULON’s branches.
“Oleksiy Vadaturskyy said, “I will create modern laboratories, you will be proud of them. I consider this case to be unique. As today with such equipment we have a strong incentive to further development. You help us to assure young people to choose the right course of life, not to be afraid of our specialization”, noted ONAFT Rector addressing to O.Vadaturskyy.
B.Yegorov mentions that it is very important for the students and teachers to implement practical skills in actual conditions. Therefore ONAFT students and their tutors appreciate a possibility to undergo practical training at NIBULON’s production facilities. “Focusing on the market leader, you always catch up with the rest. If a person sits in the lecture room, does not improve himself, he risks being moss-grown. When teachers come to NIBULON, imbibe innovations, participate in machinery and technology creation, thus, standing at the blackboard, in the laboratory or in the lecture room, they can tell students much more”, says Rector.
In his turn NIBULON’s General Director, Hero of Ukraine Oleksiy Vadaturskyy noted that the company is interested in increasing the quality of education. Using such an approach, exactly in such a company like NIBULON there are the best specialists in the agro-industrial complex of Ukraine. “At present about 100 graduates of the Academy take leadership positions in NIBULON. The youngest top-managers are mostly ONAFT graduates. In particular, they work at Mykolayiv transshipment terminal. ONAFT laboratories are equipped similarly to the transshipment terminal laboratories. At the terminal the specialists have an opportunity to define all indices of grain, wheat, and bakery products, indices of soils, air, and water quality (underground, waste, fresh water); presence of GMO and hard metals in food stuff; noise and radiation levels and level of exhaust gases of vehicles, etc. Recently the laboratories have been accredited according to the international standard GOST ISO/IEC 17025:2006 (ISO/IEC 17025:2005) “General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories”. It does matter to me what kind of people graduate from this University and how much time we need to make them real specialists”, mentions O.Vadaturskyy.
According to him, the company is interested not only in raising the level of training of highly qualified personnel but also in enhancing the prestigiousness of agro-industrial specialities. “We want young people not to be afraid of being involved in elevator, feed mill and grinding sectors. We do everything so that Ukraine’s young generation see the prestigiousness of the agriculture sector and the elevator industry, so that Ukraine, proclaiming itself to be a reliable source of food supply, play a greater role in the world markets”, added NIBULON’s General Director.
“I managed to plunge into educational atmosphere. The Academy gave me a start in life in 1971, knowledge and an ability to work gave me a possibility to create the successful company, the leader in different branches of economy”, stressed O.Vadaturskyy.
According to him, the speciality obtained in ONAFT allowed him to establish the leading vertically-integrated company that managed to achieve the leading positions in shipbuilding, logistics, as well as in agro-industrial construction. Taking into consideration the fact that he is ONAFT graduate by the speciality “automation and complex mechanization of chemical engineering processes”, Oleksiy Vadaturskyy created a technological leader of the agriculture sector and automated all the processes.
“By example of our company and implementation of the patriotic project to revive the Dnipro and the Southern Bug Rivers as main waterways of Ukraine, we showed that the agrarian sector can favour the development of metallurgy, shipbuilding, logistics, food industry and international trade. And we work hard to be the leaders in the above mentioned sectors”, said O.Vadaturskyy.
An example of diversified agro-industrial company shown by NIBULON has already inspired the Academy to change its own curriculums and to adapt approaches to technical education according to the needs of business leaders. In particular, according to ONAFT Rector B.Yegorov, during preparation of diploma theses the students give preference to diversified tasks implementation of which requires use of different often uncombined branches of knowledge.