Aron Papajčik is the Valedictorian of the Technical School "Ivan Sarić", who completed the Information Technology Electrotechnician program. He fulfilled the dream with which he went to bed almost every night in the last three years.
"The first time I participated in the “Project Week” in 2019, my Hungarian language teacher told me that I was a candidate for student of the generation (Valedictorian). From that day on, I fell asleep almost every night with the desire and the real wish to achieve it, but even if I didn't, I wouldn't complain, because when we have a goal and that goal is realistically achievable, I knew that even if I failed, I would carry with me what I learned on the way to that goal, and that may be the real reward. And it really means a lot to me that I succeeded because it is not just recognition, like a paper or diploma, but it is the recognition of all my teachers, colleagues, and classmates," says Aron.
Aron grew up on a farm where he enjoyed making various robots from metal, with the most significant being a engraving machine. Even before he came to the Technical School, he was known as "the student who did various things with robots", and the knowledge he gained here allowed him to continue to pursue projects, from ideas for special 3D printers to entrepreneurship when, as a member of the "Guys from the South" team, he created a mobile application called "Challenge" last year.
"It is a social application for challenges to become better than yesterday, and we went to a competition in Kecskemét, Hungary with it. We had to create a complete business plan, which involves the idea, product, financial and marketing plan, strategy to enter the market, primary and secondary market analysis, and finally present all of it to the jury for 20 minutes, along with a 1.5-minute advertisement. We won third place and 500,000 forints," Aron proudly says.
"The Guys from the south" returned to the same competition this year, but this time with an idea for plastic recycling. In addition to creating a vending machine for recycling plastic bottles, they also developed an application through which users can receive cryptocurrency in the form of a green token for each recycled bottle. The entire business plan won third place and 500,000 forints, as well as a special prize of 100,000 forints for the idea that could be easiest to implement.
"We come up with ideas by sitting down with three or four of us and brainstorming. That's why we go to these competitions, to become better than we were yesterday. Through these competitions, we are not only competing with other people, but also as a team and as individuals, we are competing with ourselves from yesterday, and that is perhaps the most important thing," emphasizes Aron.
Aron Papajčik is one of the 12 students of the generation awarded by the organization "IT Subotica 2030" as part of the "Student of the Year" project. He says he has grown to love Subotica so much in the
past four years that he could live here for the next 100 years, but his ambitions tell him that he should go to the Budapest University of Technology and study Electrical Engineering, and then pursue entrepreneurship.
"However, when we were at 'Digital Hive' and Andor mentioned me in his speech, which I didn't expect, he said, 'You are leaving now, but come back to us.' Until that moment, I thought I might come back to Subotica someday, but now I'm sure I'll return, since I'm not leaving because I don't have good opportunities here, but because of contacts; having good contacts is just as important as having knowledge and experience," Aron says.
