Every once in a while, no matter how devoured by the daily dynamics of software development we get, we feel the need to turn to the present, to the communities around us. In the end this is where all those belonging to the big 1&1 Romania team come from, right? And if that is the case, wouldn’t it be ok to scan and scrutinize time and ask ourselves who our future colleagues are; who are those who may come work along our side in a few years?
Together with Scoala de Valori, 1&1 Romania has asked itself this very question. And they joined forces in starting an initiative that would target teenagers with a passion for software development. This is how STAR was born (Software Talent Academy Romania), a project that brings together high school students passionate for IT, giving them the opportunity to see firsthand how a software development team works. For six weeks, five high school students teams will work on five different IT projects, nominated also by them, guided by a mentor, whose role will be to help them organize and act like a real team of programmers. The mentors and all the other specialists in IT technologies, quality assurance, software design and project management are experienced professionals from 1&1 Romania, who unreservedly accepted to dedicate a part of their personal time to this project.
We, all those implicated in the STAR project, strongly believe that this type of initiatives are very important for piecing together the theoretical aspects offered by the Romanian school system and the practical ones from the software development companies. For these young students it is very important to gain a complete image of the profession they plan on embracing, so as to later have the satisfaction of choosing a professional carrier up to their expectations. It is very important for a software development company to be able to recruit young men and women with a passion for IT, however equally educated on the modern working technologies, in order to make their integration into the existing teams faster and easier.
STAR is the project that attempts to make a first step towards reaching these goals, to the benefit of both the companies and the community. Naturally we all hope this first step will be marked by success and will be followed by many others.
You can find here more details about the STAR project.
