AI and Higher Education: When Academia Truly Meets Industry 🚀
AI in Higher Education – a unique moment when nine universities and industry engaged in genuine, structured dialogue 🚀
More than 60 participants, five universities, corporate AI experts and researchers came together for a unique professional workshop - one of the first occasions where a deep and structured conversation unfolded about how artificial intelligence is transforming technical higher education.
As the day kicked off, Ádám Szigeti (evosoft) emphasized that “institutions, companies, and researchers must work together to shape the future of AI‑enabled education.”
As someone said during the event: Budapest revealed secrets about AI in Education, together we could find them out.
The workshop was grounded in new international research: over 300 students completed a survey examining their AI usage habits. The results now serve as the foundation for a forthcoming white paper - the first comprehensive study of its kind in Hungary, moving the conversation from hype to meaningful integration.
A meeting where academia and industry truly sat at the same table 🤝
The event took place on January 21, 2026, at the evosoft headquarters in Budapest, co-organized by evosoft and AI Phase. University leaders, lecturers, researchers, PhD students and industry AI professionals jointly explored how AI competencies can be consciously and effectively integrated into engineering education.
The panel brought together evosoft experts and PhD students, Szabolcs Szőts, Daniel Varga and Danial Nagy, as well as leading university professionals such as Márta Turcsányi Szabó (ELTE), Pál Varga (BME TMIT) and György Eigner (Dean, ÓE NIK) - ensuring that educational, research, and industry perspectives were represented on equal footing.
Simon Bunyatov and Georgy Chomakhashvili from AI Phase significantly contributed to the success of the workshop through their professional moderation and support during the preparation.”
Key insights and emerging trends
Across the World Café forums and roundtable discussions, a shared professional perspective emerged:
AI does not replace teaching - it creates new learning dynamics and new educator roles.
In engineering programs, AI‑driven problem‑solving, critical thinking, and data‑literacy mindsets are becoming essential.
As more students rely on AI tools, the teacher’s role is shifting visibly from knowledge transfer to competence cultivation, mentoring and guidance.
Industry clearly expects future engineers to have practical, responsible and safe AI usage skills.
It was also highlighted that traditional teaching is no longer sufficient.
More emphasis is needed on supporting the learning process, teaching students to ask good questions, and creating safe AI‑enabled environments.
A shared direction for integrating AI
Based on the workshop outcomes, a jointly shaped, practice‑oriented AI integration framework is emerging, one that:
helps universities gradually embed AI competencies,
supports educators in developing new methodological tools,
and enables industry partners to play a stronger role in talent development and the modernization of education.
This workshop was not merely an event - it marked the beginning of a new industry–academia collaboration model.
As one participant noted: “What you imagine might be wrong”, and that is exactly why honest, multi‑stakeholder dialogue matters.
The future learning environment will be shaped by those who take part in such deep and sincere professional conversations today, and this day was one of the most important milestones on that shared journey. ✨
If you have any questions regarding the topic, please contact Adam Szigeti or Katalin Herczeg at evouni@evosoft.com.
