Tomsk State University hosted the sixth conference for DevPRO developers. It gathered more than 600 participants, the representatives of IT companies, students of four universities, including TSU, and around 30 speakers from the US, France, and Russia. Rubius IT company, GDG Tomsk community, FRII startups accelerator, and TSU became co-organizers of this event.

Opening the event, Mark Smith (USA), DevPRO keynote speaker, business development strategist and sales technology expert, presented his book and shared the ideas on how to enter the stream of constantly updated trends in IT sphere.

Sergei Dorofeev, head of Rubius company and the conference organizer, mentioned a special status of universities, which, in his opinion, are the points of attraction for talented youth. He said that it is important to be able to include these talents in a particular ecosystem which provides them with opportunity to realize their potential in the region by participating in large-scale projects, including international ones. Dorofeev also noted that Tomsk developers have the competences to offer their solutions not only to Russian but also foreign partners.

– Our main task is to create a lively community of professionals with horizontal connections because programmers are mostly introverts, they rarely change their environment. Our aim is to create the links which will last longer than the conference. Knowledge and technological tricks are not the main things, they are all well described on the Internet, but live communication is really the greatest value and rarity, – added Sergei Dorofeev.

At the conference, Tomsk State University was presented Konstantin Belyakov, TSU Vice-Rector for Innovative Activities. He highlighted the importance of such conferences for the community of IT specialists, students, and the University altogether.

– Interaction with the business environment, mutual understanding and partnership with agents of the market, the companies operating there, play a very important role for our university. Thanks to such meetings, a comfortable environment, which we will always support, arises for new creations, new projects, new products and services, – noted Vice-Rector. – In the conference format, the IT community, including our undergraduates and PhD students, will be able not only to learn from experts about the main trends in the field of development, artificial intelligence, and soft skills, but also just communicate and share ideas. Perhaps, some new projects will appear here, on the forum platforms.

Alexander Osadchenko, head of the Department for Innovative Activity of the Tomsk Oblast Administration, noted that such events make Tomsk Oblast more attractive for talented students, young professionals, and entrepreneurs.

– Holding such events is very important for creating new companies in IT sphere. It is important that a kind of “mutual pollination” is carried out, people from one team move to another with their competencies and projects. Logistics does not play a big role in IT, and international success of our entrepreneurs speaks for itself. Tomsk developments are used in the London Underground, airports in the UK and China, some solutions are in almost every smartphone or tablet. It possible to realize any ambitions in Tomsk, – said Alexander Osadchenko.

The conference conducted parallel work of five platforms: TRENDS, where the questions of artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies were discussed; WEB, dedicated to creating web applications and coding standards, and also ENTERPRISE, MANAGEMENT, and STARUPS. The topics of reports were from finding the tools of a successful entrepreneur in IT sphere and the specialists’ core competences to questions of technical PR and analysis of traps in interface design.

– We held a bright and interesting event, gathered world experts, representatives of software companies, and students on one platform. The University provided us with the platform of the Institute of Economics and Management and volunteers, helped with organization and coverage of the conference. Together we managed to create the atmosphere for communication and exchange of knowledge and experience. Tomsk State University is our long-standing strategic partner. We work together on research in the field of BigData and augmented reality. This year, together we held a number of educational courses for retraining of specialists. I would like to thank the University for its active support and contribution to the development of Tomsk IT community, – said Sergei Dorofeev.