“The code of the future” is being written by schoolchildren with the help of KBSU experts

On December 3, 2022, the district session «Code of the Future: Prospects for the Development of the Project in the North Caucasus Federal District» continued. For 100 schoolchildren of the republic on the basis of the Kabardino-Balkarian State University named after H.M. Berbekov hosted master classes in programming, excursions to educational and scientific laboratories, and a cultural and entertainment program.

«Code of the Future» is a project for students in grades 8-11, who will be able to take free two-year courses and master modern programming languages. It is implemented by the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation in different regions of the country as part of the federal project «Development of the human resources potential of the IT industry» of the national program «Digital Economy of the Russian Federation». The project operator is the autonomous non-profit organization «University of National Technology Initiative 20-35».

Tanzilya Makhieva, Head of the Department for Supporting NTI Projects and Continuing Education at KBSU, explained to reporters that KBSU specialists have developed two programs on the basics of programming — «Algorithmization of the Basics of Programming» (basic level) and «Data mining in the modern Python language» (advanced level).

Each program consists of four modules of 36 academic hours. More than a thousand high school students from various regions of the country have already been involved in the project by KBSU employees. Additional training on this project will be carried out online. The second day of the district session was held in the format of an educational and practical intensive, the program of which included lectures and master classes from leading experts and tutors of the project.

“Code of the Future” is, indeed, now the most advanced federal project in the development of digital career guidance. The project fulfills the country’s strategic plans to promote IT professions. The guys we saw here are competent, responsible, creative, I think that this project will not just go in this region, but will fly. We programmed with your students and high school students, everything worked out for everyone and everyone left with positive emotions, I think this is an excellent charge for the future in order to successfully enter IT. In addition, colleagues and we at this session quite well highlighted the difficult situations in terms of project implementation, problem areas for the implementation of IT education, shared our experience. It was here that we decided that we would make the project implementation system as flexible as possible for each district. We already have 28 educational programs in programming languages, and we are ready to develop new ones in 25 x 8 mode,” — said Raimbaev Bakhyt, Deputy Director of the Academy of Digital Development of MEO LLC.

Nadezhda Surova, Director of the Competence Center «Digital Economy» of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, gave a lecture «On the professions of the future based on IT». “The “code of the future” is to teach the younger generation to process large amounts of information, after all, we live in the age of information technology, when information comes from everywhere and you need to learn how to filter it, process it, keep only the most important for yourself. The information that the guys are now receiving at this session, and in the future they will receive on the project, just meets the modern need. Firstly, the guys do not lose anything, they do it completely free of charge, while they can determine for themselves whether they want to continue programming or not.

For some people, after all, programming is a difficult subject. Secondly, the knowledge and skills acquired here can be used as an auxiliary tool — they can be applied to any other profession, since digitalization has now touched all areas of our lives. Well, in any case, learning to master IT technologies is now an important skill for self-realization, security, and development,” Nadezhda Surova noted. Master classes for schoolchildren were held by representatives of the providers of the «Code of the Future» project: Russian New University, LLC «Mobile Electronic Education», Volgograd State Technical University, PEI DPO «1C-Education», LLC «UMAKS», brand «Maxsimum Education», JSC «Academy «Enlightenment», experts of the Kabardino-Balkarian State University. HM. Berbekov. “8th – 11th grades is the right age to start learning programming languages.

Here in your republic, residents at the everyday level speak two or three titular languages, and programming languages are essentially a set of 40-50 “words” from which sentences can be composed, and they are easy to learn. The most basic thing you need to study in programming matters is what actions you need to do when you master the programming language itself, for example, today I suggested that children transfer formulas from textbooks to a programming language in order not to solve the problem anew every time, but to implement the algorithm, which will help to substitute new data and get the result.

That is, the task in this context is to teach the logic of the program’s actions, a certain sequence of actions that can be easily expressed in the form of source code, and that’s what we were doing today,” — said Denis Shumkov, teacher of programming languages Python and C# at MEO LLC. No less intense was the program of the excursion “Journey through Digital Technologies of KBSU”, accompanied by student volunteers, the guys visited the educational and scientific laboratories of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies of KBSU, in the VR class they learned why doctors need augmented reality, in the information security laboratory they got acquainted with technologies of cyber espionage and tools for their blocking, at the exhibition of arts and crafts, the director of the college of design of KBSU, Alim Kanloev, spoke about how digital technologies are at the service of contemporary artists.

The cultural and entertainment program of the session included a visit to the expositions of the Russian, Kabardian and Balkarian national cultural centers of the KBSU and a concert prepared by the art groups and amateur artists of the university under the guidance of the youth policy department of the KBSU. Summing up the results of the district session «Code of the Future: Prospects for the Development of the Project in the North Caucasus Federal District», Elena Demidova, Director of the Department for the Implementation of the Federal Project «Development of the Human Resources of the IT Industry», noted that a new format of work was successfully tested at the Boiling Point site of KBSU.

Within the framework of the Code of the Future project, “The boiling point of the Kabardino-Balkarian State University is one of the best in the country, it is equipped with all the necessary equipment for the implementation of the project. In addition, there is a modern design, a bright technological design, an excellent opportunity for modular transformation of space, high functionality of each location, it is light, spacious and comfortable here. The project «Code of the Future» is intended for children, and they definitely like it in this room, we can see it in the eyes of the young participants of today’s event. Experts from all regions of the North Caucasian Federal District took part in the district session — this is a very high level, which the Boiling Point of KBSU adequately withstood.

Everyone was comfortable, the atmosphere of involvement of all participants is felt: the organizers, speakers who spoke without a piece of paper, volunteers, the media. It was a single team that worked towards a common significant goal, and this, of course, is the merit of the leadership of the university and the department for supporting NTI projects and continuing education. I liked the speech of the Minister of Digital Development of the KBR Islam Ashkhotov, he has an excellent understanding of why the “Code of the Future” project is needed, why close consolidation with the leading university of the republic is needed, and most importantly, he sees the prospects for the development of the region in the IT sphere. It should also be noted that this is the first district session in the Code of the Future project, it is the first of eight planned in the federal districts.

Here we successfully tested the method of holding district sessions, the format of interaction between representatives of the regions, providers, directors, school teachers and the children themselves, for whom the project was created. During these two days, we were convinced of the success of this format of the session, we see that the eyes of the children are burning, the children are working, the children are interested, this is new for them and the main thing is that they see the prospects for their participation in the project, they are imbued with interest in IT specialties and IT competencies,” — Elena Demidova noted.

At the final meeting of the district session, representatives of the federal project operator thanked the team of organizers of the district session at KBSU for their professionalism and presented a certified commendation from the Department for the implementation of the federal project «Development of the human resources potential of the IT industry» to the director of the Department for Support of NTI Projects and Continuing Education Tanzila Makhieva. By 2030, Code of the Future will teach programming to 1.2 million people. In the North Caucasus Federal District, more than 11.5 thousand applications have been submitted for courses in online and offline formats, which indicates a great demand for knowledge and skills in the field of programming by schoolchildren in the macroregion.