May 11th through 13th the IT School of the Ural Federal District, being a round of the All-Russian IT-START Program in progress since 2012, was held in Tyumen.
IT-Start is a series of training sessions, where every participant may go all the way from coming up with an idea to fulfilling a project. Moreover, they give a chance to communicate with fellow-thinkers and the market leaders, consult the experts, and obtain assessments by specialists. The most promising projects will be provided with support and follow-up.
It was for the first time that the forum was held in Tyumen at the University of Tyumen, and over 80 young programmers and startupers gathered for it. Among the forum’s guests were teams from Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, Khanty-Mansijsk Autonomous District, and the Kurgan Region. The participants attended practical master classes by federal experts of IT-Start Program Matvey Bebenin and Andrey Poskryakov. Over the course of the event business process modeling was discussed, several brainstorms were held, the market assessment was made, and the specifics of creating project teams was explained.
As a result, the jury was presented with 15 projects, which underwent many-stage expert review. The Innovations for Kids team (StandUp Innovations LLC) from Chelyabinsk with its project of an interactive sandbox became the winner of the IT School. The project is based on an idea of using augmented reality in education. StandUp Innovations Company is a successful small innovative enterprise of South Ural State University, and jointly with the SUSU employees it is working on creating unique programs for interactive complexes.
“We have reached all goals which we set for ourselves before this forum. We were able to do team work on improving the already existing project; and other participants through brainstorming gave us even more new ideas on perfecting our complexes. A big plus for us is that we passed on to the next round and will be able to accelerate,” confesses Director of Innovations for Kids Company Dmitry Andreev.
All the awardees of the IT School earned cups and valuable prizes, as well as the right to directly pass to the semi-final of the Telecom Idea International Contest without the need to pass preliminary selections.
