Competition among young programmers

Supporting young programmers, creation of opportunities for their professional growth, implementation of their innovative ideas and projects have become a catalyst for the development of domestic software industry. This was mentioned at the ceremony of awarding the winners of the annual youth competition on software development “Best Soft Challenge – 2017”, in Tashkent. 

The competition was organized by the ministries on development of information technologies and communications, higher and secondary special education, public education, Tashkent University of Information Technologies named after Muhammad al-Khorazmiy, Inha University in Tashkent, and the “BePro” programmers center. 

This annual competition is held in order to identify and stimulate talented young software developers, support their innovative projects, promote training of highly qualified personnel and development of domestic market of software products. 

The competition demonstrated the increasing interest of youth of our country in modern ICT and the growth of their technical literacy. The number of applications for participation, as well as professional level of preparation of projects submitted to the jury grows every year. This year more than 300 applications from all regions of the country were submitted for participation in the first stage of the competition. Students of academic lyceums and professional colleges, university students under the age of 25 tried their hand at developing software. 

Some amendments were introduced this year in the format of the competition. If earlier its participants presented only ready-made software solutions, now projects and ideas within the framework of four nominations: “Smart city”, “Computer and mobile games”, “Best projects in the sphere of trade and services” and “Innovative idea in the sphere of ICT” have been also submitted. The jury members assessed the relevance, originality, used technological solutions and the convenience of the interface of each proposed project. These nominations were included in the program based on current trends of development of software market in our country and in the world. 

The team that presented the “VeloBОT” project, due to its skillful possession of advanced engineering tools, allowing to create the most complex mechanical parts, received the highest rating and became the winner in “Smart city” nomination. In “Computer and mobile games” nomination the first place was awarded to the thematic website “Mylab”, allowing to conduct interactive chemical experiments. Best in the nomination “Best projects in the sphere of trade and services” became the “VR Tours” project, dedicated to the sights of Uzbekistan with the use of capabilities of VR-technologies. The program for PHP source code encryption specifically for a particular MAC address brought its creator the first place in “Innovative idea in the sphere of ICT” nomination. 

In Uzbekistan, educational programs aimed at studying programming languages among children of school age demonstrated their positive results. This year, the “Best Soft Challenge – 2017” prize was given to a team of girls at the age of 12-13, who created the “Alpomish” computer game based on the ancient Uzbek epic. For the past two years, these schoolgirls have been studying in “Codecraft” programming courses at Inha University in Tashkent.