The University of Ostrava Again Excels at Colours of Ostrava

The University of Ostrava participated in the Meltingpot discussions held at the Colours of Ostrava music festival held from 19 to 21 July this year. In addition to the discussions, the University organised great workshops in the Science and Technology Centre.

The University of Ostrava hosted 6 workshops over three days on the UniverCity stage in front of the Science and Technology Centre. Shared with the Technical University of Ostrava the even was busy with people. On the first day visitors tested their first-aid skills and the ABCs of surgery, made a nice notebook from old paper using a Japanese method and investigated a mobile beehive and extraction of honey. The following day was very busy for the chemists who prepared a workshop on making perfume, which the participants could take home afterwards. The workshop called Motion in Drawing/Drawing in Motion was also very popular, “What is she doing over there?” was a common question amongst the crowd of people watching a young lady who served as a figure model for the competitors.

The UniverCity stage was not only about workshops. Having a great experience from previous years, the University of Ostrava picked up on the lecture platform “Having a Cup of Coffee with…” Sharing was the pivotal theme this year. Five scientists from the University of Ostrava took the floor in the Science Theatre at the Science and Technology Centre. The first day was dedicated to the Rapid Re-housing concept by Eliška Černá with Petr Kubala. They spoke about reintroducing homeless families with children back to the regular world and explained how the applied Rapid Re-housing programme works in Brno. The results are showing that the project leads to less stress, lower illness rate and better sleep.

Video from the first day of the University of Ostrava at Colours of Ostrava 2018

Nicole Horáková who deals with the highly topical issue of shared economy was another speaker at the stage on the first day. “Why own when we can share?” was the title of her lecture that filled up the auditorium of the Science Theatre. We learned about the advantages of shared items as well as the negative impacts. For example, the depopulated centre of Berlin where Airbnb (a shared housing platform) has been banned, or tax evasions, or the grey market, which laws in most places have been struggling with.

Friday started with a lecture by Marek Eliáš, who focused on the diversity of cells and molecules in living organisms to explain the formation and development. He then talked about antibiotics and pointed out that today’s antibiotics might not work in the future but that it is possible that antibiotics used earlier might work again.

Friday video:

“Having a Cup of Coffee with…” Miriam Prokešová in the evening discussed how we are formed by our childhood. Based on the analyses of hundreds of memories of her students, it is obvious that childhood has a great effect on forming a personality. And in spite of being paradoxical, there are more memories that most participants remembered and that formed us the most that are of the hard times in childhood. The inspirational lecture took us all back to our childhoods and also carried a strong message: never let the child in you die, always be a bit of a girl with a ponytail, or a boy in a sandbox.

Saturday video:

The last presentation within the Meltingpot stage was given by Rastislav Maďar, an expert in the field of infectious disease prevention and control. He pointed out right at the beginning that microbes existed before us and that we are living in their world. He then talked about how microbes travel thanks to globalisation’s ease and speed of travelling today. Among other things, he showed us the environment of African hospitals where he used to work, and showed us photographs from other missions as he is not afraid to travel to these areas. The discussion also touched on other areas than travelling, people were interested in vaccination against ticks, hepatitis etc. Even though the time set for the discussion was limited, Mr. Maďar was still willingly to answer questions an hour after the end of the lecture in the informal environment of the café at the Science and Technology Centre.

Check out the atmosphere of the event in the after-movie:

Updated: 14. 02. 2022