CRUSHER or a special fitness accessory – Our sincere congratulations to Marek Žmolík and Honza Doležel! They finished runners-up among 31 submitted projects in the startup contest entitled “Tmobile rozjezdy” and advanced to the national round, to be held in Prague on 15 June. The Centre of Polymer Systems of TBU in Zlín has also participated in development of this product. Crusher is a specially developed accessory to be used in fitness centres and gyms.

Mr. Probal Basu, 1st year doctoral student (working under supervision of Assoc. Prof. Nabanita Saha and consultant: Prof. Petr Saha) awarded 1st Prize in POSTER presentation contest in the Training School on "Non Living Materials meet living Biology" organised in the frame work of COST Action MP 1301 NEWGEN and with the support of the JECS held in Patras, Greece, 9-12 May 2017. The title of his presentation is "Calcium Phosphate filled Bacterial Cellulose Based Hydrogel scaffolds:A Novel Approach for Bone Tissue Engineering". Please see the Poster, Program and Certificate in the attachment.

Mr. Gerard Janssen, a former Managing Director of the Bata company, visited the Centre of Polymer Systems at TBU in Zlín together with Mr. Rory W. Fuerst, owner of the KEEN company. At present, Mr. Janssen works as a consultant for the KEEN company. Besides the Centre of Polymer Systems, he also visited the Bata villa, Shoe Museum, skyscraper and other sights situated in Zlín and related to Tomas Bata.

A delegation of 17 members from Vietnam paid a visit to the Centre of Polymer Systems on Friday, 31 March 2017. Representatives of the Gia Lai province and Ton Duc Thang University viewed the building and the laboratories; they showed interest in the research currently carried out in the Centre. On this occasion, an agreement on future cooperation was signed.

The Centre of Polymer Systems was paid a visit by Prof. Stephen Foulger of Clemson University, USA, and that within mutual collaboration with TBU in Zlín. Prof. Stephen Foulger is the Director of the Center for Optical Materials Science and Engineering Technologies (COMSET). The scientific cooperation takes place in accordance with the schedule of the COST IC Action 1401 project entitled: Memristors - Devices, Models, Circuits and Applications (Memocis).

Dear colleagues, dear students, we are pleased to invite you to attend a lecture given by Mr. Andrej Babiš, Minister of Finance of the Czech Republic, that will take place between 10am and 11.45am on Thursday 9 March 2017 in the Assembly Hall of the Academia Centre (Mostní 5139, Zlín, building U2).

Prof. Jiří Drahoš, President of the Czech Academy of Sciences, paid a visit to the CPS on 28 February. He visited our laboratories and the technology hall. After giving a lecture on the subject of "The Way the Czech Brains Change the World", Prof. Drahoš attended an informal meeting with PhD students.

Members of the group Multifunctional nanomaterials obtained the opportunity to use the Czech Research Infrastructures providing the special measurement techniques.