On 20 May, the closing and award ceremony of the 7th Information Technologies Marathon organized by the Faculty of Computer Sciences and the student scientific society of the Faculty was held in the Voronezh State University conference hall.
The guests and talented schoolchildren were welcomed by the University Rector, Professor Dmitry Endovitsky, the Dean of the Faculty of Computer Sciences, Eduard Algazinov, and representatives of the Faculty’s partner companies – Informsvyaz group of companies, the freedom company, ATOS, NetCracker, DataArt, etc.
“At this university, we constantly work with schoolchildren, and the Information Technologies Marathon organized by the Faculty of Computer Sciences fits very well into the concept of a partnership between the university and schools. It is aimed at assisting school teachers in promoting IT technologies and in identifying the talented, smart kids, and encouraging them to opt for studying at VSU’s IT faculties. "None of the economic branches can function without information technologies”, said Dmitry Endovitsky in his opening speech.
After that, Eduard Algazinov made a presentation of the faculty, telling the students and teachers about its focus areas and collaborations with the IT companies of the region, country, and the world. Also, the Dean of the Faculty of Computer Sciences described the activities of the training centres based in the faculty set up by various companies, the Supercomputer Centre, as well as the faculty’s participation in international research and academic programs. The administration and guests of the university awarded the winners and laureates in each of the nominations with diplomas and prizes. This year has been the first one to see 10–13-year-old schoolchildren awarded prizes in computer science and programming competitions. The students in their 8th–9th year of school who demonstrated particularly good results in the Marathon received invitations to the Samsung IT School.
The Marathon took place from 1 November 2015 to 20 April 2016, and the students of the 8th–11th year of school took part in it. The program included competitions in computer projects, computer science, and programming, as well as team competitions, and seminars of the student scientific society. The marathon is held in collaboration with the Regional Centre for Students Technical Projects and the Strategia further education centre of Lipetsk. The event is aimed at providing the maximum number of schoolchildren with the opportunity to participate in an interesting and exciting contest, demonstrating their knowledge and skills in the area of information technologies.
