Many of you may have already heard or read in our blog about Technopark, a joint educational project of Mail.Ru Group and MGTU. N. E. Bauman. But wait, there is also the Technosphere. What is it, who is it and why these two projects are so similar, and how are they different, I will tell in this post.

In February, exactly one year since the launch of the Technosphere . This is a joint educational project of the Mail.Ru Group and the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics of the Moscow State University named after MV Lomonosov. Students are trained by the employees of Mail.Ru Group only. Their goal is to train qualified specialists in Big Data Analysis (Big Data). The first ten graduates recently received diplomas from the hands of Dmitry Grishin, CEO of the Mail.Ru Group, and have already begun work.

How did the Technosphere begin

The idea of ​​creating the Technosphere was born to Dmitry Voloshin (@ Dmitry21), director of the research and education department of Mail.Ru Group. He had long wanted to do some project on the basis of the Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov. But it all started quite by accident. In the summer of 2013, MSU management appealed to the Mail.Ru Group with a proposal to participate in the summer school for informatics teachers. There Dmitry Voloshin met Mikhail Fedotov and told about the Technopark. So they came to the decision to do a joint project with Moscow State University. But for this we had to make a lot of preparation.
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Making up the name was a separate story. It was time to launch the project, but the name was not there. One of the employees, Ksenia Ragozina, the manager of the organization of training, turned out to be a fan of "Star Wars" and offered to name the project "Temple of the Jedi" or "Tatooine." At MSU, they suggested calling the project “Trust”. A slight panic began, until one of the employees came up with a bright idea to suggest the name "Technosphere". It emphasized the connection with the Technopark project and everyone liked it right away. We were still joking that if there is a project based on MIPT, we’ll call it Tekhnoprud.

What is the difference between Technosphere and Technopark?

In fact, both projects are aimed at additional education in the field of IT-technologies, but the characters and specificity of the projects are individual: Technopark prepares web developers and architects of highly loaded systems, and in the Technosphere - qualified specialists in the field of Big Data. When we started the Technosphere, we relied in large part on the Technopark's experience. Even in the Technosphere there is a unique tradition - Gazebos. This is when students meet with teachers in an informal setting and talk, so to speak, “for life”, share experiences, ask questions that you will not ask during your studies. In general, the uniqueness of the Technosphere is a systematic approach to learning. The program is designed so competently that a student, possessing the fundamental knowledge gained at the faculty of the VMK MSU, is immediately ready to go to work after graduating from the Technosphere. This is a huge plus project. The output is a ready employee for IT-companies.

How is the process of training in the Technosphere?

Now the project involves students of MSU, students from the second to the sixth year. In the first year, they deduct more often, and they stopped taking the first years, because they are still just pouring into the educational process and are subject to a lot of pressure. Although five first-year students underwent the first selection, only one reached the end - Daniel Medvedev, a graduate of the SSC at Moscow State University.

We accept students twice a year - in February and September. Over the entire existence of the project, we have collected three streams. For the first time, the competition was about three people per seat, the second - about five, and more recently - a little less than five applicants per place: in February there are fewer applicants, as practice shows. The guys take a logical test, test for knowledge of C / C ++ and undergo a technical interview.

Now training in the Technosphere lasts one year. Students study six subjects: algorithms for intelligent processing of large amounts of data, methods for using DBMS in developing Internet applications, multi-threaded C ++ programming, testing, information retrieval and Hadoop. The course is aimed at gaining practical knowledge in the field of Internet technologies, and our colleagues share with the younger generation of IT specialists real experience and cases from their practice. The course materials were recorded on video and are now available on the Technosphere website in the Video Records section. All classes are held in the classrooms of Moscow State University, and in December a student data analysis laboratory was opened there. Now you can take an internship on the spot, you no longer need to go to our office. In addition, in February of this year, we launched four open courses. These are semester disciplines that any MSU student can complete in addition to the main program: methods for processing large amounts of data, developing Internet applications, programming in Perl, and an open course from our colleagues at Microsoft “Programming universal applications in HTML and JavaScript”.

Most of the participants in the Technosphere are students of the departments of the VIC, the Faculty of Mechanics and Physics, but this year the group was diversified by a student from the Faculty of Materials Science. As well as in usual high schools, examinations of Tekhnosfera after the first semester are met by no means all. Classes are held three times a week in the evenings, time for personal life and entertainment remains little.

Last year we scored 42 people, of whom only 10 were transferred to the second semester. The rest left themselves, or did not pass the examination. By the way, at the recent selection there were people who did not pull the program for the first time, but, apparently, they looked at the project in a different way and decided to act again. Man five or six went to the second round of training.

The average age of students is 20-21 years, and many already write a thesis. For some, the topic of the thesis coincides with the topic of classes, so that they successfully combine them with studies at the university. Future plans include an increase in the curriculum to two years, an extension from semester to year of a course on the subject “Data Mining” with the addition of two additional sections: “Algorithmic Compositions” and “Neural Networks”. Now the course is taught by Nikolai Anokhin (@anokhinn) and Ksenia Stroykova. We are also going to extend the course on DBMS (Konstantin Osipov (@kostja) and Evgeny Blikh (@bigbes)).

Naturally, all students are faced with the issue of choosing a profession. As for the graduates of Tekhnosfera, then everything depends on the person. Most of the guys from the first release are already employed: eight people work in the Target Mail.Ru project. The rest are in other companies and in our laboratory on the basis of MSU.

We also asked a few questions about the Technosphere Mikhail Valentinovich Fedotov, deputy dean of the faculty of the VMK of the Moscow State University named after MV Lomonosov.

Mail.Ru Group: Did VCK have experience working with external companies?
MW: We had cooperation in such a plan, in the form of seminars, separate special courses, but this was a large-scale one for the first time. Technosphere has become an additional burden for students. Of course, not everyone reaches the end, but those who have been trained are very pleased. I like the project in that it harmoniously complements our main program, gives students real knowledge and practical skills, without which it is impossible to develop.

Mail.Ru Group: How did the faculty accept "strangers"?
MW: As in any new business, there are always supporters and opponents. Some of our professors were against it, since those hours that students spent on self-education, they could spend on graduate work. But, on the other hand, do not be the Technosphere, there is a high probability that students could leave to work and generally abandon their studies. Here, the students were precisely at the faculty, and they could always come to the supervisor to talk on coursework or thesis work. Also, the knowledge that gives Technosphere can be applied at the department in the performance of the thesis. I think this is an important project that needs to be expanded. I would also like to involve other partners, for example, we have an interest in ABBYY in image processing, text recognition, and this will be in demand.

Mail.Ru Group: What is the uniqueness of the Technosphere?
MW: In a systems approach to learning. The program is designed so competently that a student, possessing the fundamental knowledge gained at our faculty, is immediately ready to go to work after graduating from the Technosphere. This is a huge plus project. We get at the exit ready staff for IT companies. I also like the approach in which the company does not aim to raise personnel only for itself, but does it for the entire IT market.