Nikolai Puntikov

President, First Line Software

Dr. Puntikov is the President of First Line Software, a global company offering broad range of software development and technology enablement services and solutions. Nikolai is a serial entrepreneur and business executive with a proven track record in building successful global organizations. He is also a committed advocate for the development of the Russian innovative ecosystem. In 2010, Nikolai co-founded the Russian Chapter of the MIT Enterprise Forum, a non-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting the growth and success of high-tech entrepreneurial ventures. Currently, he is the Chairman of CEE-SECR, the largest software engineering conference in Russia and Editor-in-chief of analytical portal Software Russia. Dr. Puntikov holds his M.S. degree from the St. Petersburg State University and a Doctorate degree from the Institute of Informatics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

University Role in IT Specialists Training

October 12, 13:40
Room I|I зал

Discuss the presentation

Education is a continuous process. All participants of the conference studied, studying now and will continue to study. An important milestone for anyone is the basic education in their professional area (which is in most cases is university), so we invite all participants to the panel discussion: “The role of the university in the training of IT professionals.”

Three main facets of this complicated topic, which we want to discuss, are:

1 What employers expect from university graduates.
2 What of these can universities provide, and what do they need for this.
3 What are the alternatives to universities in the basic training of IT professionals.

Professor Boris Steinberg will make a lead talk prior to the discussion, and then he will become one of the “panelists from education”. We will hear and see a dialogue between “representatives of employers” and “representatives of education.” We hope that all those interested will be able to ask questions to the main panelists and make polemical attacks. As a result of the discussion, we will try to approach reasonable answers to the questions posed.