27 Aug Akvelon Mentors at Digital Breakthrough, One of the Largest IT Competitions in Eastern Europe

Akvelon recently took part in the regional stage of Digital Breakthrough, an Eastern European competition between IT specialists, designers, and digital project managers. Akvelon sent 5 of our own employees to help with the competition: Software Engineer Vlad Solomatov, Team Lead Denis Slaschev, Software Development Engineer Vlad Tupikin, and Senior Software Developer Andrey Martynov took part as team mentors, and Project Manager Sergei Kufirin was a member of the jury.

One of Eastern Europe’s Largest IT Competitions

Digital Breakthrough is one of Eastern Europe’s largest IT competitions, with over 66,000 applicants pouring in from all over. At this regional stage of the competition, only 72 of those applicants made the cut to compete. In this two-day competition, teams were asked to compete in five areas: 

• Health care
• Education and science
• Housing, utilities, and urban environment 
• Public services and management
• Transportation and logistics.

Winning projects were able to qualify for a grant of 500 thousand rubles to the UMNIK program. The UMNIK program aims to select and encourage young researchers who want to thrive and fulfill their potential in the fields of innovation, science, and technology.

Beyond the Competition

Sergey Kiriyenko, the First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration, sent a welcome message to the contest’s participants. He noted this was more than just a competition, as it could help participants get jobs, open their own businesses, and offer new technological solutions. He also encouraged participants to use their expertise to change the lives of Eastern Europeans everywhere by aiding in the implementation of national projects and bringing Eastern Europe closer to a real digital breakthrough.

Joining the Jury

Akvelon Project Manager Sergei Kufirin thoroughly enjoyed participating as a member of the jury. “To be honest, I was a bit excited,” says Sergei, “because I felt a high level of responsibility for my decision as a jury member. Every participating team had only 5 minutes for their presentation and 3 minutes for a Q&A session. That was too little!”

When asked what was the coolest team project that he saw, Sergei described a project that helped to solve an ecology problem regarding garbage collection, a problem which is quite topical for Eastern Europe. The participants presented an interesting solution and showed a viable business model of their project.

Akvelon had a great experience helping at the Digital Breakthrough competition. It was a fantastic recruiting opportunity for us, as Sergei Kufirin and our 4 mentors taught participants about our company and discussed cutting-edge technologies and trends in the IT industry with them as well.

More Insights