A great many guests were in attendance, among them conference participants, university leadership, deans of faculties, employees of the Institute, both present and past. Heartfelt wishes were expressed by prof. Adam Liebert, chairman of the Committee on Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Seniormost among the guests was prof. Jerzy Luciński, who headed the Institute in 1986-95. The other two former directors - prof. Zdzisław Korzec (1973-86) and prof. Andrzej Materka - were unable to attend (1995-2015).
Rector prof. Krzysztof Jóźwik, noting the ubiquity of electronics in today's world, wished employees to find joy in their research, because only work that is enjoyable can lead to success. Meanwhile, the Dean of the Faculty, prof. Jacek Kucharski, drew attention to the history of electronics, the development of which he has observed first as a student, then as an academic, and now as the Head of the Faculty.
The present Head of the Institute, prof. Paweł Strumiłło, in his presentation 'Electronics of yesterday, today and tomorrow', sought to introduce the attendees to that history. He admitted that it was no mean feat to encapsulate so much in a 20-minute talk. He began by asking the audience where they thought they would find billions of transistors in the room. He answered the question himself by taking a smart phone out of his pocket. The focus of the remaining part of the presentation was precisely that: the extent of miniaturization and practical significance of the advancements in electronics over the years. What will the future bring? Judging by the speed of change, we can expect to see things that today are quite impossible to imagine that might nevertheless become as indispensable to us as the cell phone is today.
The Institute of Electronics has awarded 2,800 Master degrees in Engineering. Many of the graduates went on to apply what they had learned with significant success. It is fitting to mention at this point that the partner of the event was TME (Transfer Multisort Elektronik), a company that has collaborated with the Institute for many years. A family business, founded by brothers one of whom graduated with a degree in Electronics from TUL and is now one of the largest global distributors of electronic and electrotechnical components, workshop equipment, and industrial automation. The company started out of a construction trailer and has grown today to offer more than 600,000 products and to have employ a total of 1400 workers.
An analogy can be drawn between the history of that company and the history of electronics. The 1946 ENIAC computer, believed to have been the first computer ever built, took up an area of about 140 square meters and relied on vacuum tubes. A miniaturized equivalent of it today would be the size of a penny.
Science is brimming with mysteries that have yet to be unraveled. We wish the Institute of Electronics further growth and a firm foothold in Polish and global science.