About Varazdin
The City of Varazdin , capital of the Varazdin County, is situated on the southern bank of the River Drava. The region is delimited by natural borders, lying at the crossroads of Austria’s Styria and Croatia’s Medjimurje, Zagorje and the Upper Drava Valley. Varazdin has a population of approximately 50,000, and enjoys the status of the regional cultural, educational, economic and sporting centre as well as a tourism hub of North-Western Croatia. Varazdin is a proud holder of 11 national 'Green Flowers' awards as the most orderly town of inland Croatia.
What distinguishes Varazdin from other Croatian cities is the extraordinarily rich monumental and artistic heritage that is contained within its beautifully preserved historic core, which, albeit relatively small, boasts faithfully preserved places, important public buildings, Baroque, Rococo, Classicist and Secessionist houses and mansions as well as one of the oldest City Halls in Europe. Remarkable among its sights is also the Town Cemetery one of its kind in Croatia, established in 1773, which was designed by the visionary Herman Haller not only as a final resting place but also an outstanding horticultural complex.
Its rich historical heritage and lively present make the City of Varazdin one of the most picturesque towns in Croatia well worth visiting.
Varazdin is also known as 'the city of angels' and is faimed for its colorful events. The most attractive of them are Spancirfest – the Good Emotions Street Festival, which takes place in late summer, and Varazdin Baroque Evenings festival, which celebrates baroque music and architectural haritage and also features period instrument performances, which takes place in autumn. Spancirfest 2014 will be held from 22nd to 31st August 2014.
Check out some of the videos available on YouTube portraying Varazdin as a Fairytale Town.
About University of Zagreb
The University of Zagreb is the oldest and biggest university in South-Eastern Europe. It was officially founded in 1669 by the Emperor and King Leopold I Habsburg who issued a decree granting the status and privileges of a university to the Jesuit Academy of the Royal Free City of Zagreb. According to that document the study of philosophy in Zagreb acquired a formal and legal status as Neoacademia Zagrabiensis and officially became a public higher education institution. During his visit to Zagreb in 1869 Emperor Franz Joseph signed the Decree on the Establishment of the University of Zagreb. Five years later the Parliament passed the Act of Founding, which was ratified by the Emperor on 5 January 1874. On 19 October 1874 a ceremony was held in the name of the founding of the modern University of Zagreb.
Ever since its foundation, the University has been continually growing and developing and now consists of 29 faculties, three art academies and the Centre for Croatian Studies. With its comprehensive programs and over 50,000 full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students the University is the strongest teaching institution in Croatia. It offers a wide range of academic degree courses leading to Bachelor's, Master's and Doctoral degrees in the following fields: Arts, Biomedicine, Biotechnology, Engineering, Humanities, Natural and Social Sciences. It is also a strongly research-oriented institution, accounting for over 50 percent to the total national research output. It currently offers a broad selection of study programs including 72 doctoral programs and 165 specialist postgraduate programs. Deserving particular mention are over 100 bilateral agreements signed with its partner universities from Europe, North and South America, Australia and Asia. Each year the University welcomes an increasing number of international students and researchers.
Out of its 33 constituents, one of them is the Faculty of Organization and Informatics located in Varazdin, Croatia's former capital city, which is proud to host the ISD2014 Conference.
About Faculty of Organization and Informatics (FOI)
The Faculty of Organization and Informatics , a constituent of the University of Zagreb , is located in the town of Varazdin. It is a national higher education institution renowned for academic excellence in education, scientific and research work as well as in knowledge transfer in the fields of organization, informatics and complementary disciplines. Over the decades, the Faculty has been providing education to experts in the field of implementation of information technologies.
The main Faculty building (FOI 1) is located in the very heart of of Varazdin, overlooking the main square , popular 'Corso'. The Faculty's stately baroque building makes for a setting imbued with history that is both vivid and rich while housing studies for technologies of the future . Since 2007 the Faculty's premises have been extended to FOI 2 currently housing several study programs. The FOI 2 building is situated in the vicinity of the town centre and the Student Dormitory. All the infrastructure necessary for education of students has been provided, including well-equipped computer rooms, videoconferencing facilities, e-learning system, wireless Internet access on the entire Faculty premises as well as a newly refurbished modern library and reading room.
The Faculty comprises four organizational units : Teaching and Research, Library, Innovation and Lifelong Learning and Office of Common Services. The Organizational Unit for Teaching and Research consists of: Department of Economics , Department of Organization , Department of Quantitative Methods , Department of Theoretical and Applied Foundations of Information Sciences , Department of Computing and Technology , Department of Foreign Languages and General Educational Disciplines and, finally, Department of Information Systems Development which is hosting the ISD2014 Conference. Each of the abovementioned departments is dedicated to a particular study discipline and is staffed by teachers and associates of the Faculty who are actively involved in the teaching process in these disciplines.
The Faculty of Organization and Informatics aims to develop its scientific and research activities and achieve excellence in the following research fields and topics: ICT Application in Private and Public Sector, Information Systems Management, Business Process Reengineering, E-Government, Organizational Design, Decision Support Systems, E-Learning, Electronic and Mobile Business, Software Engineering, Programming Tools, Paradigms and Methods, Service Oriented Architectures, Information Systems Security, Biometrics, Multimedia Systems, Quantitative Methods for Decision Making, Risk Analysis, Project Management and Strategic Planning. Research in Information and Communications Sciences as well as in other scientific disciplines that FOI researchers are engaged in is performed within international and domestic scientific research and development projects , leading to implementation of findings in the process of instruction or their transfer into practice.
Among EU-funded and international projects that the Faculty has so far participated in are FP6, FP7, EUREKA, ESF, CEI and TEMPUS projects, Erasmus, IPA and CARDS programs as well as various bilateral projects. The Faculty's engagement in these projects has enabled it to establish partnerships with EU universities and has provided the Faculty's teaching and administrative staff with training opportunity in both Croatia and other EU member states. Through participation in EUREKA projects the Faculty gained experience in international market-oriented projects. The Faculty has also participated in several projects for Croatian governmental institutions, achieving remarkable results in research into the application of modern technologies in improving business processes of governmental bodies. Through these projects strong partnerships were established between the Faculty, Croatian SMEs and public sector as well as governmental administration institutions.
Over the last decade the Faculty has received a number of state and university awards including the Best University of Zagreb Online Course Awards, the National Volunteering Award, several University Fair Awards as well as student competitions awards.
