The first nationwide competition for innovative ideas and projects of IT students is completed. The event was held in within the Tempus project NEFESIE. Finals took place in Odessa, indoor Odesa Impact-Hub.
The general impressions by the assessment of all who spoke with me personally about IT-Eureka:
Students:
Super. We did not expect such event. The best event we have seen. Good prizes. Very interesting reports!
Organizers:
We are tired, but everything turned out well!
Jurors:
Very interesting projects and ideas. Unexpectedly good level of presentations. High level of English among students!
Teachers:
Extraordinary experience for the students. The event demonstrated the potential of Ukrainian students. Great motivation for participants and their friends, to which they will bring information about the competition. Very good organization and volunteer work!
Speakers:
Grateful audience. Good discussions. It is great that students are able to develop their own ideas by taking part in such competitions!
Summary:
The Wow! The competition was successfull! The event held at a high level! Everything enjoyed!
And now briefly about the final of IT-Eureka! Ukraine.
The main celebrators were the teams of finalists. However, the most interesting event was not the winners and awards but very interesting reports, informal communication between participants, speakers, teachers and organizers and panel discussion with invited speakers. At the very beginning the organizer warned students to listen carefully and do not do other things, because offenders will be driven out of the event (I hope it was joke :)). But the warning was useless. The reports were so interesting that everyone just forgot about all other businesses. Everybody listened, asked questions and discussed.
Reports were extremely interesting and very diverse:
- Learning and Doing. How to build your development way of life? The first report brought a touch of informality and eccentricity immediately. Thats allowed students to feel relaxed. Evgeny Yakovlev (Project Manager in the Sigma Software company, Odesa). The report was based in dialog mode, each participant dialogue, getting branded chocolate "Sigma". Enyone asked the question - Eugene throws chocolate, raised the hand - got chocolate, answered a question - chocolate flew again! This performance caused laughter in the audience and destroyed the barriers in the hall completely!
- Fly Elephant: the story starts. Dmitry Spodarets (SEO FlyElepant) shared his experience in the startup beginning and development from idea to implementation.
- Supernovas. From dawn to...? Natalia Maksimenko (Lead expert of Expertise Center of soft skills, Luxoft) talked about the principles of creation, stages of formation and development teams, how to overcome difficulties in communication between team-mates, shared best practices.
- How to attract an audience without advertising budget. Cyril Solyar (SEO Sponge Digital & Design) talked about Looks.FM (service of photo contests) as the example of experience in attracting public and disseminate information about the product without raising funds for advertising. He told about how to use a true and intriguing but not complete messages for advertising and PR.
- Lessons Djinni: building 1,001th recruitment service. Max Ischenko (co-founder of DOU.UA, SEO at djinni.co) described the experience of building a business in recruiting, how to monetize the biz, about implementation and roll-back of new features, and about monitoring of efficiency improvements.
- Do programmers have the future in the new power production? Roman Zinchenko (SEO Greencebator, TEDxKiyv organizer) presented very interesting material about the need for doing things that are unbelievable for modern specialists in traditional industries. Best practices in the field of new energy, implementation of renewable energy, smart cars, distribution and consumption more new technologies. The report was extremely interesting (Roman Zinchenko very good speaker, too) so the audience just did not want him to go! Organizers even made change of event schedule to enable to expand the speech a little.
- 10 mistakes that we went through, building a successful business. Peter Bondarevskyi (SEO Coppertino, Managing partner Internet Investments Group). The speaker drew attention to the major mistakes that people make that develop their own startups. Advise their practices to overcome difficulties dloya build a successful world-class project.
- Not War! Make Borsch! Andreas Flodström (SEO Beetroot) share his own experience of doing business in Ukraine by Swedish citizen: difficulties and benefits of becoming and construction.
