Looking back and looking ahead after this year’s conference

When I think of our company’s microscopic conferences, the Glass Hotel in Balatonalmádi, which has its own Balaton shore and was occupied only by us in May, immediately comes to mind. From the second half of the 1980s until 2008, we held family-style events organized by Kristóf Kovács, the former president of our company and a member who we sadly lost too soon. until 2008, we held events organized by Kristóf Kovács, the former president of our society and a member who we sadly lost too soon, in a family-like atmosphere. At that time, we were still called the Hungarian Electron Microscopy Society. When we decided to move on for several reasons, we chose the Aranypart Hotel in Siófok, which was also approved by one of our world-famous and at least twice invited speakers and constant friend, Rafal Dunin-Borkowski, at least based on his appreciative opinion of the hotel’s cuisine. Due to the renovation of the hotel, we did not return there after MCM2015 in Eger, but moved our event next door, and we have remained there ever since. At the hotel, Rita Gellény took over from Csilla Szabó in taking care of our conference, and this should be taken literally. She did and continues to do everything she can to make our renowned guest speakers and youngest colleagues feel at home during their stay there – and to ensure that there are no problems with the bills. Although we meet new faces at the reception and among the restaurant staff every time – a side note: we have never received so much positive feedback about the delicacies served during coffee breaks! But the friendly smiles and helpfulness are the same, as is Péter Kovács, who is responsible for the technical equipment, to whom we owe special thanks for the fact that the projector in the lecture hall is fortunately no longer the same as last year.
The rest is up to us, the participants!
There have been minor and major changes from year to year, and it is no small change that the Barna Árpád Award, founded by TechnoorgLinda, seems to be becoming part of our conference program. All we can say about the second award ceremony is that János Lábár won the grand prize, while Erzsébet Dodony was the winner of the competition for young people. The company’s generosity and commitment to the award is demonstrated by the fact that, exceptionally, not only the two winners, but all seven applicants received cash prizes in recognition of the high standard of the entries submitted.
Our guest speakers, Professor Valentin Nagerl and Krisztián Szigeti, kept in mind that their audience was not made up of experts in their field, but rather people who were familiar with a wide range of microscopic applications and were particularly interested in the possibilities and applicability of microscopy. However, this was not true of all the presentations. Unfortunately, such errors related to the content and presentation of the lectures also occurred in the TDK students’ competition presentations. It is true that most of the errors could not be blamed on them, but at a conference, it is not acceptable to say anything that is scientifically unacceptable. (If it does happen, it must be pointed out immediately – in the interest of all participants!
The management has therefore decided that from next year, the submitted presentation abstracts will be pre-screened. The remuneration of the presenters will also change. The audience award will remain, but the “main prize” will be decided by a professional jury.
However, no one should worry! The original purpose of the competition has not changed. We still do not expect a Nobel Prize-winning research presentation in 5 minutes, not even an abridged version of a PhD thesis.
We expect a presentation in which we can hear the results obtained using MICROSCOPIC methods in a way that is interesting to EVERYONE, that everyone can understand and therefore learn from. And all this must be presented within the specified time limit.
It is not easy, but I am sure that our young people are capable of accomplishing even more difficult tasks than this!
At this year’s conference, based on the audience’s votes, third place went to Sára Vida (KOKI), second place to Lili Ladányi (SzBK, Szeged) , who each won a bottle of wine of their choice and a certificate, while Katalin Zsófia Tóth (KOKI) won first place and, in addition to her certificate, a €300 contribution towards her participation in mcm17 in Portorož.
Finally, I would like to add that not only has the youth competition been reorganized, but the date of next year’s conference has also changed. In the hope that this will encourage more university lecturers and students to attend, anyone who would like to come next year should mark their calendars now: the MMT conference in Siófok will be held from April 22-24, 2026!