Want to make a cool projects, but can't do it yourself?  Learn IT disciplines that are not in the university program?  Maybe you want to participate in the Olympics and the Hackathon, win awards and go to competitions?  But what if we tell you that all this can be achieved by a student in KHNURE?

Today we introduce you the Multi University TechTalents Education Platform.

Not so long ago in one of our articles we talked about a sports programming competition - Nure Code Jam, which was held as part of the TechTalents program, but we did not tell the most important thing - what exactly is TECHTALENTS.

To understand what opportunities students participating in the program have, we talked with its organizer, candidate of technical sciences, assistant professor of software engineering, Alexei Turuta.

 -WHO CAN BECOME A PARTICIPANT IN THE PROGRAM?

 ALEXEI:

 - In Kharkov, mathematical schools that prepare cool and strong students are very well developed.  And then these students disperse throughout the city - to different universities and stop working together.  Then we say: "Let's make an inter-university program so that the guys can study further together, but everyone will go to the university they want."  So our program is aimed at this in order to bring together talented children who can study together, listen to courses, and participate in interesting events.  The program was created on the basis of the Department of Software Engineering of the Faculty of Computer Science of KHNURE, because there are more students who are our target audience.

  - HOW ARE STUDENTS SELECTED FOR PARTICIPATION IN THE PROGRAM?

 ALEXEI:

 - Participants pass math and programming.  Mathematics is checked by a person, and programming - automatically.  Each participant must score from 500 points 500-600.  This year, out of 115 people, they chose 24 who can study with us.

 Why are we not selecting everyone?

 Because, frankly, the program is complicated.  Therefore, we immediately test and say: "Look, you have to study like this, will you be able to keep up?"

 Somewhere around 20 people were selected additionally, who did not pass the test, but wanted to participate.  We agreed with them that they will be free listeners and if they succeed during training, they will be transferred to the main staff.

 WHAT KNOWLEDGE ARE STUDENTS GETTING IN THE PROGRAM?

 ALEXEI:

 - What will we be teaching students?  We will be teaching fundamental things - mathematics and algorithms.  We will not go deep into technology.  And technology students will already pull themselves up.  We will also teach the disciplines that will be aimed at organizing labor: Time Management, Project Management, Product Management, so that the children can not only quickly program, but their activity is "saturated with the product approach". The main thing is that before they do anything, they should answer the questions: "For whom and why are we doing this?", "Who will need this?", "Will it help someone in the future?".  If a person writes a program without answering these questions, then no one needs it.

 - WHICH DISCIPLINES STUDENTS LEARN?

 ALEXEI:

 - In the second year, we select complex algorithmic disciplines, in the third year we add disciplines related to data analysis and prepare the basis for machine learning, which is taught in the 4th year, then computer vision and natural language processing will be studied.  Our goal is to give good technical training and the ability to make your product in three years.  So that students, studying algorithms and mathematics related to data analysis, could ultimately be specialists in machine learning, computer vision and natural language processing.

Plus, we add product disciplines so that the guys do not just code, but create something useful, so that it is interesting to someone else.

 -HOW DID THE PROGRAM IDEA APPEAR?

 ALEXEI:

  - In 2015, during the student Olympiad, I discussed with Alexander Medov (General Director of AltexSoft) the solution of the issue related to the training of qualified specialists who are so necessary for the IT business.

 We agreed on the following: we will make changes to the training program.

 How can this be done?

 At the university, all students have the opportunity to choose 25% of disciplines from the second, third year.  Due to this, it was decided to expand the number of necessary disciplines for the modern IT specialist.  Teaching with TechTalents for students is free.

IS THE PROGRAM SUPPORTED AND BEING DEVELOPED TODAY?

 ALEXEI:

 - Today, the TechTalents program is developing with the support of founding partner Alexander Medovoy and partner Dmitry Sverbilov, I coordinate the work of the program.

 WHAT ACTIVITIES DO YOU HAVE FOR STUDENTS?

 ALEXEI:

 -To make students interested, we hold a programming Olympiad in the fall or winter.  Already at the Olympics we are looking for guys who do well.  And in the spring we carry out the Hackathon.  Last year, AI Hackathon was held (thanks to Alexandra Nikolashina and Anastasia Deineko for help in organizing the event), and this year they were forced to postpone due to quarantine.

These are the two main activities that are part of our program.  We partially use the Olympics to select children for the program, and the Hackathon - for those who study with us.  At the Hackathon, they present their products.  We celebrate the best works and further try to develop them.  For example, one of the teams that won the Hackathon medal went to the finals and presented her work at a university startup competition in Copenhagen.

 As Steve Jobs said: "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling soda, or do you want to change the world?"  By participating in the TechTalents program, you develop yourself, create and develop completely new things that, possibly, will change the world in the future.

 For more information, see the TechTalents Facebook page.

 And also in the Telegram channel.

 Interview by

 Alena Gorbaneva