Friends,today's guests are representatives of
School of Information Technologies and Engineering in
ADA University.Please welcome!
ADA University Representatives
Again Welcome!We always host active
social,successful students from ADA University who put their signatures under important successes.
Welcome, professor, let's start with you.
Thank you!
These youngsters you see here are the first year students
in ADA University School of Information Technologies and Engineering.
I would like to introduce myself as well; Araz Yusubov
the acting dean of this school.
And there is a reason that why we are here today.
A MAG team has came to one of the events held by us.
Some shootings were done.But we would like to talk
generally about our school and faculties,
about hosting these kind of events and etc.
First of all I want to talk about the faculties
in our school.
The students here are Sofia from
Computer Engineering,
Igbal and Leyla from Computer Science.
And we have one more faculty:
Information Technologies.We have about
500 students.And this year is very important for us
because we will have our first graduates of our school.
We came to the telecast with our freshmen only,because
seniors are very busy these days with both their
graduation projects and exams.
Professor, now I would like the students
introduce themselves as well.
Then we can resume on our talk.
Sofia, can you please talk about overall ambiance at ADA University.
You are a student and a freshman. How is your
general student life?
I would like to firstly mention that the student life is very interesting.
In ADA University the social life of the students is as important as the academic life.
Meaning that, different events such like international affairs, competitions take place.
And they are not only about Computer Science and Engineering, but also social life and entertainment.
With participating in these events we make our social life more colorful,
widen our network, meet new people and make new friends.
I think it's very important.
Of course, it's very good.
I am Leyla Aghazada, I am studying Computer Science.
I am a freshman as Sofia.
Very good.
I am Igbal Huseynov, I am studying Computer Science
at ADA University.I am also a freshman now as my friends.
Professor, as a school, you are participating lots of
international events and competitions.
I would like to talk about them.
We try to encourage our students actively participate in different competitions.
And by the way, we were talking about our seniors,
at this time in Moscow, international Data Analytics Olympiad is taking place.
After the online qualification in Moscow, among 900 teams
30 teams were qualified to the final round, which is held in YANDEX office.
And one of those teams is ADA University team, which is
representing Azerbaijan.
Thus, we try to make our students use and test
the knowledge, they have learnt, practically 
 during these types of contests
These students here, are freshmen but we also try to
involve them in these events as well.Of course,
in these competitions, winning is not that easy.
There was a competition called "HashCode" which was
moderated by Google Paris Office.
There are lots of competitions like this, for instance
Code Jam, Hacker Cup moderated by Facebook and etc.
The different thing about HashCode is that several problems are not
given there. You have only one problem and you should find the most
optimized version of solution to that problem. And you should work in teams.
It's the 3rd year that this competition is happening.
The first phase is online round.This year 4500 teams
were participating from over 70 countries.
Lots of people have joined from both Europe and Asia.
Additionally, there was a chance of creating hubs during the competition.
Registering as hubs, we had the opportunity to gather
the teams so they could be physically together and share the
excitement of competition with each other.
It is the 2nd year that ADA University is a hub for HashCode.
The time is usually so late, thus the competition starts
at night and finishes after 5 hours, at 2 or 3 AM.
We make this open for everyone,meaning that not only
teams from ADA University but also teams from different
universities or mixed teams can participate in this competition.
The meaning of hub is to create a professional
environment, in which young professionals or students
can test their knowledge and experience in this competition context.
Indeed, along with our seniors, students you see
here were also participating. In this situation
the olympic motto was playing a great role which is
"It's not the winning, but the participation"
Now, I would like the students themselves talk about
how is the process, what they learn there, how they joined?
Though I am a freshman, I have already participated
two different competitions in ADA University.
As our professor mentioned, the main thing is not
winning, but learning for us.As freshmen, we didn't get
so far, but we had many experiences in that extremal situation
such as, we had to search for some information in internet
which we hadn't covered during lessons,
we had to explore some additional files.
Even though we were all freshmen, still
we could managed to pass 1 level out of 5 levels.
And this is really your success!
I want to continue our talk with you, Sofia.
I have the information that you were attending such
projects, participating in events which were organized by
ADA University even since you were not a
student in ADA University but a schooler.
And after you generally explored the university, you
decided that you want to be a student of this university.
Yes, even one of the main reasons why I chose this
faculty in ADA University was attending those events.
I can say "Ada Legacy Day" as an example which
happened last year. It is an annual event and will also take place this year.
We should explain this, probably.When we say "Ada Legacy"
it can be misunderstood by the audience.
The first programmer in history was 
woman, and her
name was Ada Lovelace. At that time, she was known
as the author of first published program for mechanical computers.
And as the name "Ada" is common with "ADA University"
we host "Ada Legacy" in order to mention the role of women
in Information Technologies.
So that the first  programmer was a woman, it means
women should be more in this field and profession.
So, the university wants to see more women in ICT so
they host this event annually, in order to get more
attention from women.
By the way, this year on 21st April, we will host this
event for the 3rd time and we hope it'll be interesting.
At that time, Sofia was not a student but she has attended the event.
I was interested in these kind of events, and as
those events were held in ADA University, I was going
there very often.
Last year's event was very interesting, we even had a
guest from USA - Jennifer Widom. She is a dean at
Stanford University now. She has given some information
about BIG DATA which was very useful for
me after I entered the university. At least I had
the fundamental knowledge about this topic.
Leyla, let's hear about your thoughts.
We tend to teach what we learn to the school children as well.
There is an annual event done by ACM,and it's
held in Azerbaijan every year. It was organized at ADA this year either,
and we have participated in this.
We usually try to express our knowledge to school children
in order to provide fundamental knowledge  to them.
Know things like what coding is, how it is done,
how we make these things real, how the games
are created. We try to teach all these things to school children.
Professor, I would like to talk about Hash Code again
Obviously, last night our MAG team was there until midnight,
they have shot the event from beginning to the end.
It's interesting that during this contest, did your
students achieved as well as you were expecting?
That's a good question, actually in international contests
getting to the final stage means you are one of
the 30 teams out of 4500.
I guess staying until midnight for this contest
demands deep love for the profession of people.
Meaning that, everyone there has love for programming
and the profession they have chosen.
Secondly, there was professional rivalry.
That's also a nice issue.
And I should mention that besides with ADA University,
there was another hub in Baku Engineering University.
Teams also were gathered there and participated in the competition.
We hope that these kind of attempts will be massive.
I want to return to the topic of the competitions that
you participate with teams.Because team spirit is
very important.You both make new friends,
and spend more time together while being in a team.
This also contributes to your personal development as
an individual.Let's talk about it, Igbal.
I would like to say that, before this competition there was
another one that we participated,which was a team competition as well.
Unfortunately after being qualified to the final round, my team mates
had to leave the team, and I was left alone.I understood
that you should choose your team mates very carefully
in order to always be side by side.It was ACM-ICPC.
But in Google Hash Code, it was not like that. My friends
and I fought until the end together.The advantage of team
competitions is that for instance in any workplace we should work
in teams, startups and ideas are all done in teams.
I think these competitions, team works guide us a lot.
Professor, I would also like to clarify one issue.
You said that, people who are not students of
ADA University can also attend these events.Can you please
tell that how it is possible, so the youngsters can know
the answer through our telecast.
They can follow our page in social media. There are variety of events,
besides them, we have a program called One day at ADA,
via that, any schoolchildren can spend one day at campus,
attend the lectures and so on. One student from university
is assigned to them, they can see the library, the lessons and campus life.
Moreover, we hold IT Days, it is now like a tradition.
I think it is more interesting.
During that event, students present their projects, instructors
give speeches about different interesting topics.
Last time students presented a robot which is playing piano.
I guess you was also in that project.
Yes, I helped with the project organization.
They usually make interesting things.
We invite everyone who is interested.They should just follow our page.
I can also say the approximate date, IT Day will be around May, 22.
So people should be attentive starting from now on.
And you have mentioned Ada Legacy Day, it will be on April,21.
I guess it would be better to hear it from the students themselves.
Which interesting events are held in ADA University,that as students you can
join, improve your skills, make new connections etc.
Every week we have SITE weekly seminars. I guess
for CE and CS majors these events are very useful. Because
every week different professionals from different fields give speeches.
In these seminars we discuss topics from mobile
banking to artificial intelligence.
Also seminars are open for everyone who is interested.
That's why, in my opinion, they are very beneficial.
Additionally, in those seminars both our professors and
instructors and guest lecturers give speeches.
We usually have speakers from leading ICT companies.
A few months ago we had 2 Azerbaijanis, one of them was
working for Facebook and another for Amazon.They
were talking about their interesting experiences to
More specifically, how the work is organized in leading
ICT companies,which skills do you need in order to be
a member of those companies, which subjects are more important,
what you should consider during the interviews etc.
About science, we see some specific scientific concepts,
for instance, what are the latest innovation about
artificial intelligence, machine learning, speech
recognition, which kind of scientific projects are done etc.
In addition to what Sofiya said,except from scientific
events, we annually have career week in which
leading companies of Azerbaijan and also international companies
like Google introduce different job and internship opportunities.
These companies enable students to benefit from these opportunities.
This is also as important issue as science in our university.
This year it was 6th time that Career Week was held.
Of course, local ICT and also non-ICT companies were
represented for all students from different majors.
But this year we had a chance to have live connection to
a  software developer from Google office online for the first time.
The students were also participating in this webinar, I guess it was
interesting that we could ask our own questions.Then our students
asked very complicated and many questions and got their answers.
I express my gratitude to all of you, thank you for coming. I wish much success to you.
Thank you!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
