The largest conference in Ukraine in the field of IT education Synergy. IT Business & IT Education, was held this year in online format and brought together participants from Ukraine and abroad. 40 experts from business, government, education and science shared their vision of the future development of IT education in Ukraine, lifehacks for teenagers and switchers, their experiences in the development of non-formal and corporate education, cooperation between universities. The benefits of offline and online education in wartime evoked the hottest debates.
The participants had the opportunity to join:
- two hot discussions: "Education during the war: the basis for restarting the country's new economy" and the international panel "Ukraine and the world: new horizons of cooperation in the field of education for the high-tech sphere";
- three parallel streams focused on different target groups and topics: "Teenagers education", "Preservation of formal education and ways to support it by business", "Education for adults: switchers, new professions, effective educational trajectories".
The losses of the Ukrainian economy from the war with Russia are huge. But the economy has to work. That's why USAID Competitive Economy Program in Ukraine focuses on supporting entrepreneurs who continue to operate under war conditions. We support them in keeping the jobs, production facilities and business activity as much as possible in their region and sector and in continuing to grow in the new environment. And we also support those who today want to open their own businesses in completely different areas. That's why investing in education right now is extremely important,
- Olesya Zaluska, Chief of Party, USAID Competitive Economy Program in Ukraine.
This year, we have created a unique opportunity to participate in the innovative Metaverse space, which arouse much interest among our audience! Our partner DAN. IT Education hosted the stream "Education for adults: switches, new professions, effective educational trajectories" on the basis of its Metaverse college. The event united over 120 participants, 40 of them were present in the Metaverse. The visitors had the possibility to plunge into virtual space and attend the first college in Metaworld, create their own avatar, communicate and exchange of experience with colleagues and speakers from all over the world.
For most of stream participants, it was the first experience with Metaverse, and people being engaged, staying through the event and willing to share their feedback afterwards. Definitely, gamification has a positive impact on keeping participants involved and motivated at such events.
This year Synergy 2022 stands outside of all annual conferences. And the key reason is that this conference starts being less academic, concentrating more on diversity of educational platforms and appealing directly to our target audience - people who would like to switch to IT. I witnessed brilliant speeches of my colleagues who contribute to our IT community growth and educating people and feel respect and gratitude for their inspiring speeches and advice one can take as a roadmap for switching to IT,
- Kseniia Stolbova, CEO DAN.IT Education.
We are grateful to our partners USAID Competitive Economy Program in Ukraine, Ukrsibbank BNP Paribas Group, DAN.IT education and our info partners: Ministry of education and science of Ukraine, Happy Monday, Освіта.ua, Na chasi, TechUkraine, Osvitoria, Financial Club, GoIT, Code Club, Chernihiv.IT Cluster, IT-Association Vinnytsia, Ivano-Frankivsk IT Cluster, IТ Dnipro Community, Kharkiv IT Cluster.
Special thanks to our speakers and participants of the Conference!
For all those who did not have time and did not have the opportunity to join the event, we suggest you to watch the recordings on our Youtube channel at the link: Synergy 2022. IT Business & IT Education: New Horizons.
If you are interested in the speeches of individual speakers, you can read their presentations at the link.
See you next year!
Synergy. IT Business & IT Education is the largest profile conference in Ukraine, launched by the Association in 2014, brings together on one platform all national stakeholders in the field of IT education to share experiences, create favorable conditions for industry development and identify its priority directions.
In the nine years of its existence, the Synergy platform has brought together more than 10,000 participants and about 250 leading speakers of IT business, government, education and science. Synergy includes dozens of successful cases, collaborations of leading IT companies and universities, best practices in corporate IT education, speaker presentations, panel discussions, presentations of startups and educational projects.
