Loading...Pentalog always welcomes smart iniatives that have the potential of creating the best possible environment for sustainable growth and competitiveness. We embrace any collaboration that leads to the developement of the IT community and the acceleration of the technological innovation, especially in the academic field.
With that in mind, we are very proud to be announcing our lastest partnership, which we hope it’s going to be a long and fruitful one. Pentalog and Tekwill are teaming up to deliver “PHP Fundamentals” course, a pilot program which aims to prepare students and provide human capital in the techology field, an initiative that will ultimately narrow the gap between universitites and IT companies through practical and hands-on training.
The course is led by Alexei Panin, Scrum Master at Pentalog, who has been working on the development of high-load applications, Big Data processing, social marketing systems and mobile development. Alexei also has a teaching assistant by his side, Petru Darii, PHP developer at Pentalog. We asked Alexei about his experience with the course so far and about the added value that this kind of initiative brings to Moldova’s economical stage.
1. Please tell us more Tekwill’s role in shaping Moldova’s entrepreneurial economy.
Alexei: “Tekwill is Moldova’s first IT Excellence center which acts as a learning platform for students and a tech hub dedicated to study, innovation and mentorship. The purpose is to trigger Moldova’s economic growth by providing highly qualified TIC specialists and a sustainable startup investment ecosytem that encourges entrepreneurship and competitiveness. Tekwill was developed with the support of USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development ) under the “Development of Moldova ICT Excellence Center” Project, implemented by the Moldovan Association of ICT Companies (ATIC).”
2. Have you teamed up for other projects in the past or is this your first collaboration?
Alexei: “Pentalog’s partnership with Tekwill started in March 2016, along with “Tekwill Tech Day powered by Pentalog”, an event where participants could take advantage of master class sessions on up-to-date technologies and tools, such as TDD in Node.JS, WinDbg+SOS, Automated Software Testing, Java, Python, Agile, Android applications. Our team of speakers included web developers,.net developers, Java, Python and Android developers. We were extremely happy with the result and with the positive feedback we received from the IT community, which also led to visibility and credibility boost for both Tekwill and Pentalog.”
3. Why is this initiative different and how are the classes structured?
Alexei: “The program is built in such a way that participants can get the real feel of being in a startup-like work environment, where they can benefit from practical guidance and they will be able to focus on the development of real projects. Upon completion, the students will have learned how to develop a web application from scratch using Symfony 3 framework, versioning tools, deploying the product on a development/production server, identifying potential problems in the initial phases of development and create REST API available for others.”
“The course started on October 26 and lasts 7 weeks, with classes running on Mondays, Wednesdays, Friday evenings and on Saturday mornings. In total, there will be 56 training hours during the course of which participants will work on different modules of the same project, using SCRUM with time-boxed sprints, the purpose being to develop a social network project.”
4. What were the selection criteria for the candidates?
Alexei: “As part of the Tekwill Academy’s pilot program, the course is free, but candiates were asked to go through an application process that consisted of a technical test and an English test. We focused our selection on detemined and strong-willed students, passionate about IT technologies and who also had expressed their availability for the classes. We were pleasantly suprised by the number of applications, which confirms once more that Moldova’s IT potential is growing day by day”.
5. What are your expectations for the end of the program?
Alexei: “Pentalog is always interested in being involved in promising initiatives that may lead the the fulltime employment of some of the most engaged atendees! We are happy to be adding value to the IT community and we are constantly looking for resilient and well-prepared people to be a part of the Pentalog community!”
