“Hacking Marathon” Took Place at PetrSU

Experienced and aspiring mobile software developers from PetrSU had an opportunity to learn about the Sailfish OS, and the specifics of application development.

The event raised genuine interest among students who have started taking their seats one hour before the training. By the start of the event the auditorium could barely accommodate all the participants.

Those present were welcomed by the Vice-Rector for Scientific Research Vladimir Siunev, who highlighted the importance of participation in such events: “They are yet another stage of professional development and provide an opportunity to gain new knowledge and obtain new skills.”

“The Sailfish OS is declared a national operation system for mobile devices. It is supposed to be used at all state organizations of the country.  This means that we will need a great number of specialists able to develop software on Sailfish OS,” noted the Head of the Department of Computer Science and Mathematical Support Yurii Bogoiavlenskii.

Petrozavodsk University students were among the first in Russia who were shown the Sailfish OS. According to the President of FRUCT Sergey Balandin such trainings and hackathons have been held only at Yaroslavl State University, N.I. Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod and are planned to be held in several Moscow universities.

“Petrozavodsk University traditionally shows great interest for these events. This time over 100 people took part in the event. I’m pleased to note that level of training of your students is quite high,” said Sergey Balandin. He also pointed out that such events have practical and scientific implications, as the students develop services that they will further promote on the Sailfish OS, while the knowledge they gained can be used in preparation for reporting at scientific conferences. 

In the framework of the training the participants learned about the Sailfish platform and practiced developing applications, learned how to apply their experience in programming for smart phones and tablet computers.

Having stocked their mind with knowledge, the representatives of the IT took part in “Hack Marathon” – hackathon (a portmanteau of the words “hack” and “marathon”) in developing applications, games, and operation system modifications for the Sailfish OS.

“Participation in hackathons is a useful point in CV of any specialist. All employers pay attention to such things,” noted the President of FRUCT.

Developers of the best project were awarded newest devices running the Sailfish OS.

The event was organized by the “Open Mobile Platform” company, FRUCT Association, the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics and the Automation System Center of PetrSU.