Competition "SKB Kontur" through the eyes of a trainee Supl.biz

My name is Alexander Kiryushkin, I am a second year student at the Physics and Technology Faculty of Tomsk State University. In December 2013, I traveled to Yekaterinburg to present a project to expand the Supl.biz base at the SKB-Kontur student competition.

Supl.biz — a platform through which one can easily find suppliers of various goods and services — has allowed me to take a step forward in professional and personal development. And all because Supl.biz, unlike many other projects, always welcome interns. I was invited to this company by its founder Yevgeny Dyachenko. He taught programming in my group and believes that first-year students who show outstanding results in the subject can immediately realize their potential in combat missions.


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First, Eugene offered me to write a program that parses the file with data about different companies. I really liked that he was not embarrassed by the lack of my practical knowledge in this area. Therefore, thanks to Supl.biz, I had the experience of writing programs for a serious project (I used to work only on solving Olympiad problems). Some time later, on the bulletin board of our faculty, Yevgeny saw information about the competition, which is organized by SKB Kontur. And he offered me to write another program, with which I spoke at a scholarship contest.

The essence of the program is as follows. We go to the websites of various companies and look for email in the HTML code of the page. If the email was not there, then various paths are added to the site name: / contacts, / info, etc. The obtained information allows Supl.biz to expand its contact base and, accordingly, increase the number of executed orders.



The organizer of the event, SKB Kontur, is a federal software developer who holds an annual scholarship contest for student IT projects . The competition consists of two stages: correspondence and full-time. For the first, it was required to provide personal data, an application for participation in the competition (with the signature of the supervisor and a seal), a program code and its description. After some time, a letter with the result should have arrived at the post office. I successfully completed the first stage and got into the second round together with 10 representatives of personal and team projects. For a full-time tour, it was necessary to prepare a project presentation. The results of the selection to the second round were known in advance, so there was plenty of time.

In general, I bought tickets, collected things and went to Ekaterinburg. A day later, I finally arrived at my destination. The first thought was: “Hurray! I am in Yekaterinburg! I got to the hotel, rested and sat down to repeat my speech. I must say that this was the first scholarship contest in my life. Emotions overwhelmed me since the evening, I tried to imagine exactly how this competition would be held.



In the morning I was seized with a little excitement, but I successfully coped with it. Looking ahead, I want to note that during the trip back - to Tomsk, I realized how many smart and beautiful girls were in my environment during this short time. But I was so passionate about my project and competition in general, that, unfortunately, I did not attach any importance to it in time.

It was already twenty minutes past nine, and I eagerly left the hotel - I wanted to be on the spot early. When I arrived at the right address, none of the participants were there - only the organizers. They asked me to take part in the lot. So I found out what time my exit would take place: I got the second number. I was delighted and thought that the sooner I tell, the sooner the excitement will pass, and the matter - aside. You can enjoy the performances of other participants.

The presentation of the projects was as follows: first they called the participants in turn, observing the time limit for the performance, then the participants went out, opened their presentation and told everything they had planned. Then the jury members asked questions arising in the course of the report. By the way, the jury consisted of 5 people - the key employees of SKB Kontur. Questions could also be asked by any of the participants. When the questions ended, everyone focused on the message of the next contestant.

My turn came, I opened the presentation and told about my program the way I wanted - without hesitation. I saw how those present recorded something in their notebooks. As it turned out, these were questions. As far as I remember, I did not answer questions very well. Probably because I did not think in advance about the answers to the questions that were asked to me as a result. The next time, of course, I will try to prevent this. For example, for me the question became problematic: “Are you sure that the email you found really belongs to the company to which you refer it?” They also wondered how the project was monetized. I didn’t go deep into this area, because right after Eugene’s invitation, joyful, “went head on” into his tasks.



I listened to the reports of other contestants with great interest. By the way, two participants, just like me, came from my favorite academic Tomsk. After the first five reports a break was made, during which it was possible to discuss the development of your project with any member of the jury. After the presentation of the last speaker, we began to expect the announcement of the results. The hour passed like 5 minutes, because The organizers have prepared for us a “bunk” - a very fun and intellectual game.

Experts conferred for a long time. As they later noted, it was difficult to determine the winners: all the projects were interesting and unique in their own way. But the very exciting moment has come - who will win the scholarship ?! Of course, everyone in the shower wanted to hear his last name. But I didn’t get upset when I didn’t hear my last name. Not yet given the first time. Therefore, I drove home with high spirits. Participation in the competition gave me a huge motivation to develop further in terms of programming.

Finally, I want to thank SKB Kontur for the excellent organization of the competition and give some suggestions to future participants:

• be confident in yourself and your project - this is the main thing in winning;
• think in advance about the wording and specifics of possible questions, prepare for decent answers;
• be interested in various projects - this will expand your horizons and competence in your area, will also contribute to the birth of new ideas, each of which may eventually become an independent and successful project.

I wish you success!