Every year in December, students of the bachelor’s programs of Lviv IT Cluster sum up the results of the projects’ teamwork. Together with the experienced mentors, hundreds of students work in teams on innovative projects, gain practical skills and teamwork experience, learn to publicly present their ideas to come up with their work results to the special jury at the end of the year.
In September, students of the Cluster’s education programs were divided into teams of 5-6 people and chose the topics of their projects. Depending on the program, students work on projects for one or more semesters. IT specialists provided by the Cluster assisted students in preparing technical parts, and teamwork teachers were responsible for developing soft skills.
“All students’ projects this year had different strong points. In one case, it was the idea of a truly unique solution; in another – the maximum value for the target audience or, for example, interesting prospects for further product development. There was one thing in common – this time, all the projects were worth the jury’s attention. Qualitative and creative presentations encouraged discussion, the teams received a lot of feedback and comments from experts. My key impression is that honest and inspiring collaboration gives visible results,” comments Nataliya Kuba, teamwork and soft skills teacher at the IoT program and Center of Learning Excellence Director at SoftServe.
Students of the 1st and 2nd year of the bachelor’s program “Internet of Things” of Lviv Polytechnic were the first to defend their projects this academic year. A total of 37 teams, consisting of about 200 students, presented their projects online and received grades and recommendations. The jury for the IoT program was formed by Yaroslav Klochnyk, SoftServe specialist and IoT program lecturer, and Igor Salamin, head of Human Capital at PLVision, and representative of the Lviv IT Cluster Education Committee, as well as other IT professionals with extensive experience in startups, finances, and IT innovations.
The projects prepared by the students were very different – from household to agricultural and medical: motivational and travel applications, educational platforms, cooking services, smart-cups, and smart-devices for farmers, parking and anti-theft systems for cars, even software for the virtual reality devices for medical students, etc. The jury members noted that every year the level of projects and presentation skills of students is constantly growing, and many projects are ready to be demonstrated to investors.
“As a regular jury member of the students’ semester projects, I can say with confidence that the level of understanding of the profession and the level of projects is growing every year. This means that the joint cooperation of universities, mentors, IT volunteers, lecturers/laboratory assistants, and students gives real results that are valuable for the IT industry in general,” said Igor Salamin, representative of Lviv IT Cluster Education Committee.
Videos of the presentations can be viewed on the “Internet of Things” program’s Facebook page. It should be noted that the December defenses for IoT students have not yet been finalized. The final project pitching for the second-year students of this educational program is scheduled for May.
On December 24, students of the “Cybersecurity” of Lviv Polytechnic presented their projects. Besides the curators of this educational program Mykhaylo Kropyva, InfoSec Director at SoftServe, and Ivan Opirsky, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor at the Department of Information Security at Lviv Polytechnic and the jury has joined Olena Gunko, Head of the IT department of the Lviv City Council, and specialists of the university program from GlobalLogic. In total, 18 teams presented their projects. The projects covered different areas but always included an element of data security.
Videos of the presentations can be viewed on the “Cybersecurity” program’s Facebook page. We should also note that IT Cluster attracted more than 30 mentors for the mentioned bachelor’s programs. More IT experts work with students on other programs whose projects defense are planned for the end of the winter-spring semester.
“This year, for the first time, I decided to join Lviv IT Cluster’s IT Expert project and become a mentor for students of the “Internet of Things” education program at Lviv Polytechnic National University. I was pleasantly surprised that the students I work with are very motivated and proactive. They listen, take the mentor’s advice into account, and put it into practice; they learn things the mentor recommends for additional study. Students were able to self-organize and plan work on the project, taking into account the mentor’s recommendations, and master the basic skills needed for effective teamwork quickly. Working with such young people is a real pleasure! The good news is that students are not doing a project “for a grade, for the teacher”, they really prefer to implement their idea into a full-fledged product. Special thanks to the curators of the IT Expert program for the efforts invested in the organization and for the great experience gained in cooperation with them,” says Alexander Barinov, mentor of the program “Internet of Things” at Lviv Polytechnic, R&D Lead at Intelliarts.
The IT Cluster is constantly looking for IT professionals ready to share their experiences with the younger generation. If you want to become a student mentor in one of the Cluster’s bachelor’s programs, please leave your information in the type form.
Finally, we would like to add that everyone can support higher technical education in Lviv thanks to the new EduFund project. The simple functionality of the subscription makes it possible to pay personal monthly contributions in a convenient amount – $1, $10, $20, $50, or $100, to support Lviv IT Cluster’s educational programs at the Lviv universities.