Avenga’s contribution to IT education in Ukraine

For several years, Avenga has been actively supporting the development of the education sector. Through partnerships with universities, our IT experts share their extensive practical experience and knowledge with students, teaching them new approaches and technologies. This collaboration helps equip future professionals with skills aligned with the current needs of the IT industry, providing students with pertinent knowledge and expertise.

Last year, our team also actively engaged in diverse educational initiatives. We talked to Khrystyna Horbas, Avenga Academy Manager, to learn more about the most important ones.

Conferences and workshops

In 2023, for the second time, we took part in the IT Future Conf – the largest IT conference for high school students organized by the Lviv IT Cluster. The event brought together 4000 participants. Our colleague Mariia Stadnyk, Senior Project Manager, took the floor to shed light on the role of a Project Manager in an IT company and dispel myths associated with this profession.

Avenga is an active member of the Kharkiv IT Cluster. Thanks to the Cluster’s support, our colleagues — Andrii Petryk, Engineering Director, and Andrii Marynets, Python Software Engineer — took part in the webinar discussing the TOP-6 programming languages for professionals, students, and everyone keen on IT.

Andrii Petryk outlined trends and prospects of programming languages like Java, Scala, Kotlin, and Go. Meanwhile, Andrii Marynets spoke about the essential skills and knowledge for aspiring Python and Javascript developers and gave practical learning recommendations.

During the fall, the Kharkiv IT Cluster and IT STEP organized a series of online events – “Career days,” centered around launching and advancing careers in the IT industry. Mariia Stadnyk, Senior Project Manager at Avenga, discussed with the students the responsibilities and competencies required for the role of a Project Manager and essential skills for career growth. She also shared her practical experience emphasizing the importance of the PM’s role throughout the project life cycle.

Traditionally, our company participated in the Data Engineering and Security (DES-2023) school organized by the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. During the 2 weeks of DES-2023, IT specialists supported about 1000 participants in mastering theoretical knowledge and practical skills.

For the fourth year in a row, our Data Science engineers have been giving lectures to students. This time, they shared their expertise  on the following topics:

• “Federated Learning: Collaborative Machine Learning without Centralized Training Data” by Olena Domanska, Data Science Engineering Manager.
• “How to hack a neural network even if it was developed by Google?” presented by Solomiia Leno, Data Science Software Engineer and Valerii Martsyshyn, Junior Data Science Engineer.

Furthermore, the integration of school management software development into educational curricula is a crucial step forward. By exposing students to the practical applications of software that manages educational institutions, we not only broaden their technical skills but also prepare them for future challenges in creating solutions that enhance academic and administrative efficiency.

Olena Domanska, Data Science Engineering Manager, and Taras Bokalo, Head of BAO, also participated in the event as mentors for student teams in the project competition.

Meetings with students and mentoring sessions

Ten students from the Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics had the chance to enhance their practical IT skills under the mentorship of our colleagues: Andrii Marynets, Python Software Engineer, and Bohdan Vynnytskyi, Big Data Software Engineer.

During the mentoring sessions, our expert, Andrii Marynets, imparted his expertise in Python development, CI/CD setup, and application containerization. Bohdan Vynnytskyi taught students to work with Big Data using Apache Spark, Apache Kafka, ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Kibana), Apache Airflow, and MongoDB.

Also in Poltava, students of the “Poltava Polytechnic Professional College” of the National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute” specializing in Software Development, along with their teachers, visited Avenga’s office. The students had the chance to explore the company’s office and learn about its operations, internship possibilities, and employment prospects. Additionally, the students got a test task aimed at selecting candidates for the technology internship.

Together with the Lviv IT Cluster, our office hosted a meeting with the first-year students of the Statistics and Data Science program at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv.

During the event, the students had the opportunity to meet Olena Domanska, Data Science Engineering Manager at Avenga, who’s been at the helm of this program for several years and is also a lecturer at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics.

Valerii Martsyshyn, a fourth-year student at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv and Junior Engineer at Avenga, also shared his experience with the audience. Valerii is more than just a Statistics and Data Science student — he got an internship at our company through an invitation from Olena.

In addition, Khrystyna Horbas, our Academy Manager, shared more info about Avenga, and representatives of the Lviv IT Cluster and Ivan Franko National University of Lviv shed light on the ins and outs of the educational process and diverse opportunities available to students.

Supporting other education initiatives

Avenga specialists initiated a new educational project aimed at updating competency matrices for ten highly demanded areas in today’s IT market. These areas encompass QA, JavaScript, Python, Java, graphic design, UI/UX, project management, 3D Artist, DevOps, and cybersecurity. The updated matrices may be used to enhance training programs and craft questions for the Hard Skills Exam certification test.

The project team was composed of Stepan Shykerynets (Senior QA Engineer), Iryna Syvorko (Senior Project Manager), Vladyslav Litovka (Engineering Director), Serhii Divnych (Senior DevOps Engineer), and Andrii Petryk (Engineering Director).

In 2023, we also supported the all-Ukrainian engineering hackathon SmaRTF, where students showcase their talents and create devices to assist our defenders and bring our victory closer. For the first time, the jury and sponsors selected 8 teams for the final instead of 5. All participants were granted the necessary components to turn their projects into reality. The winner was the RADEX team from Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute with their RED EYE project.

Avenga has been cooperating with the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Ivan Franko National University of Lviv for four years. In 2023, besides backing educational programs and teaching, we also offered technical assistance in setting up a conference room in their new laboratory.

Educational events and initiatives mean a lot to our community. They’re not just about sharing knowledge but also about turning learning into real experiences and opening doors to new opportunities. We thank our Avenga experts for their active participation in all events!