IT in the region. Ulyanovsk. Out of the dusk
Ulyanovsk is my hometown, but I started my development career in Moscow and went from a PHP developer in a web studio to a Ruby On Rails programmer on Skype. Zelenograd, where the Skype office is located, turned out to be a very unusual city. It is really very green, well-groomed and pleasant for life. It was there that the idea came that the wedge light in Moscow did not converge. After some time, I quit my job and, having no plan or savings, went home to Ulyanovsk to create my dream company.
Imagine my surprise when I learned about how developed the IT movement in the city.
Content :
A company that deals with blogs, as well as the creation, management and development of a variety of content projects. Their most notable products are Lifehacker , one of the most popular Runet blogs, as well as the Macradar Apple blog .
The creator of the sensational mobile application “ Buy a loaf! ". Originally conceived as a joint shopping list for couples, it has a minimalistic interface, synchronization between devices and other useful features. Recently, “Buy a loaf!” Has become the most popular shopping list in the world.
Company products - solutions for e-commerce Ecwid , X-Cart , LiteCommerce . These products are used in more than 180 countries, hundreds of thousands of online stores. Ecwid is written in GWT. The company employs more than 130 people. The founder of the company, Ruslan Fazlyev, is rightfully considered one of the most successful Russian startups .
Their product is CS-Cart , another popular e-commerce solution of the company. Customers - more than 30,000 stores in 163 countries. The company itself employs more than 100 people.
In general, in Ulyanovsk there are a lot of companies making such decisions, many of which are quite popular. And around them there are no less than hundreds of small companies that are engaged in maintenance and their modification.
One of the largest online agencies in Russia. The staff exceeds 100 people. The main office is in Ulyanovsk, a branch in Moscow. The company works on sites, online advertising, mobile applications, games for social networks and other projects for large Russian and world brands, including Sony, Renault, GinzaProject restaurant holding, Ingosstrakh, Alla Dukhova’s ballet “Todes”, etc. ITECN ranks 9th in the ranking of leading web developers in Russia and the CIS according to the analytical project Runet Rating.
A branch of one of the leaders in the digital advertising market RED KEDS. In 2011, MST took
14th place in the ranking of web studios “Tagline”. The company won a bunch of professional contests. The company's customers are Panasonic, M. Video, Gazprom, Rosneft and others. MST has an excellent office , often surprising the company's guests. Now the company goes into the narrow specialization of creativity and design, while developing two of its own software startups.
AdVantShop.NET , one of the most popular e-commerce products in Russia. The platform is distributed both in license and in SaaS, sold in Russia and in the West. The main development technology is .NET. The company's portfolio also includes projects developed for Sberbank, gameland and others. ITM is actively engaged in social projects, including ul-people.ru , rating-education73.rf
Included in the top 100 tagline marketing agencies .
In addition to the development of custom web projects, the company created the project “ City in 3D ”.
My Media developed a unique technology of social marketing based on 3d tours, which was already appreciated by the international forum Seliger and the advertising agency Ogilvy. The guys formalized their philosophy in the social project PROFESSION.RF that became famous in the city .
Full cycle advertising agency. Among clients: Just, StroyTransGaz, Yulmart, IKEA, Russian Special Economic Zones, ArArAt. In early 2013, the company launches its own software product.
The company is developing a technological ecosystem of its own and partner products for the rapid deployment of real-time web applications. Among the clients: Sony, NASDAQ, NBC, Universal Music Group. Perhaps the largest project in Russia using Erlang. The co-founder and technical director of the California company Lev Valkin at the time initiated the opening of a technological office in Ulyanovsk. Echo was one of the first companies to systematically attract highly qualified engineers from Moscow and Russian regions to Ulyanovsk.
He is engaged in the development of an “uncompromising technological platform for television broadcasting over the Internet.” The company is widely known among rails developers. Some public projects: telemarker.ru and webvybory2012.ru . A team of thirty developers is working in Ulyanovsk, some of which have moved from other cities: Chelyabinsk, Samara, Saratov.
The largest developer of custom software in Ulyanovsk. More than 80 specialists of the company create systems in C ++, Java, C #, JavaScript, PHP, Objective-C and other languages. The portfolio of SimbirSoft includes projects in the financial sector (banking systems, FOREX), software for embedded systems (for example, for motion controllers), architectural design, project management, CRM and much more. The company is a manufacturer of software for business in the Russian Federation, Europe, USA, Japan, Israel. Project volumes on the side of SimbirSoft range from 1 to 60 person-years. In recent years, the company has mastered mobile technology and is now making business applications for Android and iOS.
A Moscow company established in 2007 and operating in the VAS services market. Due to the interest of Ulyanovsk employees in the Ruby on Rails framework, some of the company's services were implemented on this platform, which is gaining popularity. As a result, it became the main one in the subsequent development of various software products for the Big Three operators. The total number of company services in commerce exceeded one hundred, and the number of subscribers served by them exceeded tens of millions throughout Russia. The company unites more than 60 employees from various cities, has a branch in Kazan, and is now actively developing a technological representation in Ulyanovsk.
The main specialization of Kaizen is outsourcing on Ruby on Rails, audit and consulting. Among the clients: kommersant.tv, VOOP, tulp.ru. The company is actively involved in shaping the development of start-up team of the Ulyanovsk tulp.ru . Kaizen holds many Ruby / Rails workshops and workshops on development approaches (XP, Agile, DDD). Engaged in attracting investments (as well as technical specialists) in the region.
Developer of games for mobile platforms since 2003. The portfolio includes games for iPhone, Android, Nintendo DS, Windows Phone, Windows 8, Blackberry. Work with Chillingo, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Nokia.
Netstream.ru, RBC Hosting Center, XIM, Nic.ru have their branches in Ulyanovsk.
The city has a large and mysterious "NGO" Mars " , which is mainly engaged in management systems for the military and civilian industries. They develop a lot of things , but they don’t tell anyone about it because of secrecy :)
An open regional competition of computer creativity among schoolchildren, organized on the initiative of Pavel Makarov from the Ulyanovsk State Technical University and Elena Bukina from the Lyceum at UlSTU. Hundreds of schoolchildren take part in this event every year, who present their work in 17 nominations. Representatives of IT companies conduct master classes as part of the competition. Master IT has been held for 10 years and is the largest school competition in Ulyanovsk.
Volga IT Olympiad among students and graduate students Volga IT annually gathers participants from all over the Volga. This year the Olympiad has already 9 nominations. In 2011, about 400 people took part in the first round, more than 100 competed in the finals. The Olympiad is held on the basis of the leading universities of Ulyanovsk, and secondary educational institutions have also joined this year. Founded by Creative Development, in recent years the Olympiad has grown into a major regional event, organized and sponsored by key local IT companies and the government of the Ulyanovsk Region.
For the first time, "Programmer's Day" was held in Ulyanovsk on September 12, 2010. Since that time, the event has been held annually and is aimed at IT students of all courses. Over the past 2 years, “Programmer's Day” has been held at UlSTU, where students are represented by representatives of the city’s leading IT companies. In 2012, the event included study tours of students and schoolchildren to the offices of IT companies, as well as reports from invited experts, for example, Alexander Byndyu from Chelyabinsk. Organizers of the event: two non-profit partnerships (including 11 leading IT companies) with the support of the Ministry of Information Technology of the Ulyanovsk Region.
A training project implemented by IT companies of the city with the support of the Government of the Ulyanovsk region since September 2010. The main focus of the training center is to conduct courses to increase IT competency for students and young professionals. Also on the basis of itc73, additional special projects are organized, for example, “Summer School of Web Developers”.
Within the framework of the itc73 project, experienced employees and managers of IT companies began to conduct training courses in the areas of "Programming", "Web Design", "Layout", "Internet Marketing", etc. PHP, Ruby, .NET, C + +, Objective-C, etc.
In two years, the number of destinations increased from four to eighteen. The training was attended by more than a thousand people, some of whom now work in IT companies in Ulyanovsk. Some course participants subsequently set up their own companies.
An on-site training seminar for young people who want to work in the IT sector and develop software products.
The team development format for students was born in 2011 after the second edition of the itc73 courses and was called the "Summer School of Web Developers." For the first time, the guys in the teams developed Internet sites (there were 5 cut-offs in the project and 2 weeks of time), each team eventually developed and presented real projects. This “pumping” helped the participants to gain teamwork skills.
The continuation and development of the project was the deadline-camp, which took place in the summer of 2012. Within the framework of this project, the guys lived in a tent camp away from the city for a week. Having broken into teams, they developed real projects, both for the web and for desktops. Every day, experts from the organizing companies came to them and read master classes on topics from management to testing and code writing practices.
The non-profit organization ULSK.IT (ITECH.group, “Script”, “Creative Development”, Echo), together with the Ulyanovsk State Technical University, launched a new educational program this year, according to which students spend part of their studies “at work” - within the walls of IT companies, and teachers are employees of companies.
In the summer of 2011, the Script company for the first time held ULCAMP on the banks of the Volga, an informal gathering of IT specialists from Ulyanovsk and invited guests. ULCAMP'2011 became the largest event of its kind in the region and served as a powerful incentive to strengthen ties within the IT community of Ulyanovsk.
In July 2012, ULCAMP turned into an international festival, which received considerable resonance in Russia and without a doubt became the most noticeable IT event of the past summer. What is the list of speakers worth: Sergey Belousov (Runa Capital), Petr Didenko (SKB Kontur), Sergey Zefirov, Sergey Kotyrev (UMI), Andrey Aksenov (Sphinx) and even Monty, the legendary creator of MySQL.
The desire to continue professional communication after the ULCAMP-2011 rally led to the birth of ULCAMP :: Dev - periodic self-organizing meetings of IT specialists, at which professionals exchange experiences, and newcomers get the opportunity to chat with IT “gurus” (both local and invited guests from other cities) . The subtleties of the profession, new technologies and features of their application, and much more are discussed. Meetings are usually held every month after hours in the conference rooms of the offices of IT companies or in the lectures of UlSTU. Functional paradigms, development through testing, continuous integration, devops are discussed and implemented everywhere.
The main interaction occurs through the facebook of the it_ulsk group and ULCAMP :: Devcounting 400-500 participants. The group also includes colleagues from other regions. Many of them come to the meetings as whole delegations (hello, CHEBiT! :), and also actively participate in the discussions.
The first strike conference in Ulyanovsk was held in April 2012. It was attended by more than 1000 people from different regions of the country. The conference turned out to be versatile, with reports on web development, marketing, IT startups. Speakers were stars of highload.ru commercial conferences: Roman Pavlushko (AVITO.ru), Alexander Titov (Skype), Alexey Rybak (Badoo), Alexey Mahotkin (undev.ru), Konstantin Osipov (mail.ru), Lev Valkin (Echo ), Dmitry Kozlov (DEFA), Andrey Yablonskih, Dmitry Vasiliev (NetCat), Vasily Tkachev (AllInTop) and Ivan Nikitin (binn). The event became one of the largest in the Volga region, and at the same time - completely free for participants.
“Gatherings” is one of the most informal formats of the Ulyanovsk movement, allowing beginner IT people (and those who want to become them) to communicate with well-known technology bison in an informal setting: ask questions that interest them, listen to success stories and participate in the discussion of relevant topics.
The above companies are the initiators and active participants in the IT movement of the Ulyanovsk region. They hold master classes, organize meetings and discussions: regular meetings of testers, round tables, chef-party (devops), 24-hour hackathons, and even inter-corporate Halloween celebrations. In addition, employees of several companies teach at Ulyanovsk universities.
Upcoming Events
Due to the fact that recently a large and active community of Ruby / Rails developers has formed in the city, the idea has ripened to hold a Railsclub conference in Ulyanovsk. The organizers accepted the idea with interest, and active preparations are underway. The speakers will be Maxim Lapshin, Alexey Palazhchenko (Skype), Andrey Rudenko (mail.ru), Lev Valkin, Nikolay Rekubratsky (undev.ru), Ivan Evtukhovich (express42), as well as representatives of Evil Martians, Evrone and others. The announcement of the event is here .
Next year, the event will be held on two days at the Lenin Memorial. The planned number of participants is 2500. Participation is free. Speakers from Mail.ru, Yandex, Google, Badoo, Skype and many others are expected.
In July 2013, the third international festival ULCAMP will be held.
After my stories about local IT, Scrumtrack decided to hold a training in the summer of 2013 in Ulyanovsk.
Recently, we often hear from our colleagues from other regions that Ulyanovsk sounds more often and louder. This is due to the openness of companies and the expressed desire to establish horizontal ties. Literally 4 years ago, the situation in our country was not much different from our neighbors - everyone was sitting behind their own "iron curtain" and saw around only attempts to take employees away. In 2010, it became clear that this was a dead end.
Despite the existing disagreements between the companies, we are actively interacting and looking for common ground. For example, everyone is worried about the outflow of specialists to Moscow, and we are learning from each other to create more favorable conditions for employees. Largely due to this, the "brain drain" in the capital is really decreasing. Attracting investment and the emergence of new companies in Ulyanovsk are also in our area of interest. We see how the exchange of experience and technological diversity leads to an increase in the overall technical and organizational level of local companies.
Confident steps have been taken to involve the regional authorities in the civilized support of various aspects of the IT movement. The Ministry of Information Technologies of the Ulyanovsk Region is a sponsor or co-organizer of many useful undertakings. And, although many issues are still being resolved without proper focus and professionalism, there is a chance to rectify the situation and that our example of interaction between private and state initiatives will turn out to be a worthy example for replication in other regions of Russia.
Imagine my surprise when I learned about how developed the IT movement in the city.
Content :
- companies and city products known in Russia and abroad and / or actively participating in events;
- "IT movement": the formation and the present;
- upcoming events and plans for growth.
Companies & Products
Buffer bay
A company that deals with blogs, as well as the creation, management and development of a variety of content projects. Their most notable products are Lifehacker , one of the most popular Runet blogs, as well as the Macradar Apple blog .
Script
The creator of the sensational mobile application “ Buy a loaf! ". Originally conceived as a joint shopping list for couples, it has a minimalistic interface, synchronization between devices and other useful features. Recently, “Buy a loaf!” Has become the most popular shopping list in the world.
Creative development
Company products - solutions for e-commerce Ecwid , X-Cart , LiteCommerce . These products are used in more than 180 countries, hundreds of thousands of online stores. Ecwid is written in GWT. The company employs more than 130 people. The founder of the company, Ruslan Fazlyev, is rightfully considered one of the most successful Russian startups .
Simbirsk technologies
Their product is CS-Cart , another popular e-commerce solution of the company. Customers - more than 30,000 stores in 163 countries. The company itself employs more than 100 people.
In general, in Ulyanovsk there are a lot of companies making such decisions, many of which are quite popular. And around them there are no less than hundreds of small companies that are engaged in maintenance and their modification.
ITECH.group
One of the largest online agencies in Russia. The staff exceeds 100 people. The main office is in Ulyanovsk, a branch in Moscow. The company works on sites, online advertising, mobile applications, games for social networks and other projects for large Russian and world brands, including Sony, Renault, GinzaProject restaurant holding, Ingosstrakh, Alla Dukhova’s ballet “Todes”, etc. ITECN ranks 9th in the ranking of leading web developers in Russia and the CIS according to the analytical project Runet Rating.
MST Digital Agency
A branch of one of the leaders in the digital advertising market RED KEDS. In 2011, MST took
14th place in the ranking of web studios “Tagline”. The company won a bunch of professional contests. The company's customers are Panasonic, M. Video, Gazprom, Rosneft and others. MST has an excellent office , often surprising the company's guests. Now the company goes into the narrow specialization of creativity and design, while developing two of its own software startups.
ITM Group
AdVantShop.NET , one of the most popular e-commerce products in Russia. The platform is distributed both in license and in SaaS, sold in Russia and in the West. The main development technology is .NET. The company's portfolio also includes projects developed for Sberbank, gameland and others. ITM is actively engaged in social projects, including ul-people.ru , rating-education73.rf
My media company
Included in the top 100 tagline marketing agencies .
In addition to the development of custom web projects, the company created the project “ City in 3D ”.
My Media developed a unique technology of social marketing based on 3d tours, which was already appreciated by the international forum Seliger and the advertising agency Ogilvy. The guys formalized their philosophy in the social project PROFESSION.RF that became famous in the city .
INTERRA digital
Full cycle advertising agency. Among clients: Just, StroyTransGaz, Yulmart, IKEA, Russian Special Economic Zones, ArArAt. In early 2013, the company launches its own software product.
Echo
The company is developing a technological ecosystem of its own and partner products for the rapid deployment of real-time web applications. Among the clients: Sony, NASDAQ, NBC, Universal Music Group. Perhaps the largest project in Russia using Erlang. The co-founder and technical director of the California company Lev Valkin at the time initiated the opening of a technological office in Ulyanovsk. Echo was one of the first companies to systematically attract highly qualified engineers from Moscow and Russian regions to Ulyanovsk.
undev
He is engaged in the development of an “uncompromising technological platform for television broadcasting over the Internet.” The company is widely known among rails developers. Some public projects: telemarker.ru and webvybory2012.ru . A team of thirty developers is working in Ulyanovsk, some of which have moved from other cities: Chelyabinsk, Samara, Saratov.
Simbirsoft
The largest developer of custom software in Ulyanovsk. More than 80 specialists of the company create systems in C ++, Java, C #, JavaScript, PHP, Objective-C and other languages. The portfolio of SimbirSoft includes projects in the financial sector (banking systems, FOREX), software for embedded systems (for example, for motion controllers), architectural design, project management, CRM and much more. The company is a manufacturer of software for business in the Russian Federation, Europe, USA, Japan, Israel. Project volumes on the side of SimbirSoft range from 1 to 60 person-years. In recent years, the company has mastered mobile technology and is now making business applications for Android and iOS.
Fun box
A Moscow company established in 2007 and operating in the VAS services market. Due to the interest of Ulyanovsk employees in the Ruby on Rails framework, some of the company's services were implemented on this platform, which is gaining popularity. As a result, it became the main one in the subsequent development of various software products for the Big Three operators. The total number of company services in commerce exceeded one hundred, and the number of subscribers served by them exceeded tens of millions throughout Russia. The company unites more than 60 employees from various cities, has a branch in Kazan, and is now actively developing a technological representation in Ulyanovsk.
Kaizen
The main specialization of Kaizen is outsourcing on Ruby on Rails, audit and consulting. Among the clients: kommersant.tv, VOOP, tulp.ru. The company is actively involved in shaping the development of start-up team of the Ulyanovsk tulp.ru . Kaizen holds many Ruby / Rails workshops and workshops on development approaches (XP, Agile, DDD). Engaged in attracting investments (as well as technical specialists) in the region.
Mobirate
Developer of games for mobile platforms since 2003. The portfolio includes games for iPhone, Android, Nintendo DS, Windows Phone, Windows 8, Blackberry. Work with Chillingo, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Nokia.
Other
Netstream.ru, RBC Hosting Center, XIM, Nic.ru have their branches in Ulyanovsk.
The city has a large and mysterious "NGO" Mars " , which is mainly engaged in management systems for the military and civilian industries. They develop a lot of things , but they don’t tell anyone about it because of secrecy :)
Educational movement
IT Master
An open regional competition of computer creativity among schoolchildren, organized on the initiative of Pavel Makarov from the Ulyanovsk State Technical University and Elena Bukina from the Lyceum at UlSTU. Hundreds of schoolchildren take part in this event every year, who present their work in 17 nominations. Representatives of IT companies conduct master classes as part of the competition. Master IT has been held for 10 years and is the largest school competition in Ulyanovsk.
Volga-IT
Volga IT Olympiad among students and graduate students Volga IT annually gathers participants from all over the Volga. This year the Olympiad has already 9 nominations. In 2011, about 400 people took part in the first round, more than 100 competed in the finals. The Olympiad is held on the basis of the leading universities of Ulyanovsk, and secondary educational institutions have also joined this year. Founded by Creative Development, in recent years the Olympiad has grown into a major regional event, organized and sponsored by key local IT companies and the government of the Ulyanovsk Region.
Programmer's Day
For the first time, "Programmer's Day" was held in Ulyanovsk on September 12, 2010. Since that time, the event has been held annually and is aimed at IT students of all courses. Over the past 2 years, “Programmer's Day” has been held at UlSTU, where students are represented by representatives of the city’s leading IT companies. In 2012, the event included study tours of students and schoolchildren to the offices of IT companies, as well as reports from invited experts, for example, Alexander Byndyu from Chelyabinsk. Organizers of the event: two non-profit partnerships (including 11 leading IT companies) with the support of the Ministry of Information Technology of the Ulyanovsk Region.
Educational project " itc73 "
A training project implemented by IT companies of the city with the support of the Government of the Ulyanovsk region since September 2010. The main focus of the training center is to conduct courses to increase IT competency for students and young professionals. Also on the basis of itc73, additional special projects are organized, for example, “Summer School of Web Developers”.
Within the framework of the itc73 project, experienced employees and managers of IT companies began to conduct training courses in the areas of "Programming", "Web Design", "Layout", "Internet Marketing", etc. PHP, Ruby, .NET, C + +, Objective-C, etc.
In two years, the number of destinations increased from four to eighteen. The training was attended by more than a thousand people, some of whom now work in IT companies in Ulyanovsk. Some course participants subsequently set up their own companies.
deadline camp
An on-site training seminar for young people who want to work in the IT sector and develop software products.
The team development format for students was born in 2011 after the second edition of the itc73 courses and was called the "Summer School of Web Developers." For the first time, the guys in the teams developed Internet sites (there were 5 cut-offs in the project and 2 weeks of time), each team eventually developed and presented real projects. This “pumping” helped the participants to gain teamwork skills.
The continuation and development of the project was the deadline-camp, which took place in the summer of 2012. Within the framework of this project, the guys lived in a tent camp away from the city for a week. Having broken into teams, they developed real projects, both for the web and for desktops. Every day, experts from the organizing companies came to them and read master classes on topics from management to testing and code writing practices.
Branch of the department of measuring and computing complexes of UlSTU based on ULSK.IT
The non-profit organization ULSK.IT (ITECH.group, “Script”, “Creative Development”, Echo), together with the Ulyanovsk State Technical University, launched a new educational program this year, according to which students spend part of their studies “at work” - within the walls of IT companies, and teachers are employees of companies.
Professional mover
ULCAMP
In the summer of 2011, the Script company for the first time held ULCAMP on the banks of the Volga, an informal gathering of IT specialists from Ulyanovsk and invited guests. ULCAMP'2011 became the largest event of its kind in the region and served as a powerful incentive to strengthen ties within the IT community of Ulyanovsk.
In July 2012, ULCAMP turned into an international festival, which received considerable resonance in Russia and without a doubt became the most noticeable IT event of the past summer. What is the list of speakers worth: Sergey Belousov (Runa Capital), Petr Didenko (SKB Kontur), Sergey Zefirov, Sergey Kotyrev (UMI), Andrey Aksenov (Sphinx) and even Monty, the legendary creator of MySQL.
ULCAMP :: Dev
The desire to continue professional communication after the ULCAMP-2011 rally led to the birth of ULCAMP :: Dev - periodic self-organizing meetings of IT specialists, at which professionals exchange experiences, and newcomers get the opportunity to chat with IT “gurus” (both local and invited guests from other cities) . The subtleties of the profession, new technologies and features of their application, and much more are discussed. Meetings are usually held every month after hours in the conference rooms of the offices of IT companies or in the lectures of UlSTU. Functional paradigms, development through testing, continuous integration, devops are discussed and implemented everywhere.
The main interaction occurs through the facebook of the it_ulsk group and ULCAMP :: Devcounting 400-500 participants. The group also includes colleagues from other regions. Many of them come to the meetings as whole delegations (hello, CHEBiT! :), and also actively participate in the discussions.
STRIKE
The first strike conference in Ulyanovsk was held in April 2012. It was attended by more than 1000 people from different regions of the country. The conference turned out to be versatile, with reports on web development, marketing, IT startups. Speakers were stars of highload.ru commercial conferences: Roman Pavlushko (AVITO.ru), Alexander Titov (Skype), Alexey Rybak (Badoo), Alexey Mahotkin (undev.ru), Konstantin Osipov (mail.ru), Lev Valkin (Echo ), Dmitry Kozlov (DEFA), Andrey Yablonskih, Dmitry Vasiliev (NetCat), Vasily Tkachev (AllInTop) and Ivan Nikitin (binn). The event became one of the largest in the Volga region, and at the same time - completely free for participants.
IT gatherings
“Gatherings” is one of the most informal formats of the Ulyanovsk movement, allowing beginner IT people (and those who want to become them) to communicate with well-known technology bison in an informal setting: ask questions that interest them, listen to success stories and participate in the discussion of relevant topics.
Miscellaneous
The above companies are the initiators and active participants in the IT movement of the Ulyanovsk region. They hold master classes, organize meetings and discussions: regular meetings of testers, round tables, chef-party (devops), 24-hour hackathons, and even inter-corporate Halloween celebrations. In addition, employees of several companies teach at Ulyanovsk universities.
Upcoming Events
Railsclub - December 15–16
Due to the fact that recently a large and active community of Ruby / Rails developers has formed in the city, the idea has ripened to hold a Railsclub conference in Ulyanovsk. The organizers accepted the idea with interest, and active preparations are underway. The speakers will be Maxim Lapshin, Alexey Palazhchenko (Skype), Andrey Rudenko (mail.ru), Lev Valkin, Nikolay Rekubratsky (undev.ru), Ivan Evtukhovich (express42), as well as representatives of Evil Martians, Evrone and others. The announcement of the event is here .
“STRIKE” - April 5–6, 2013
Next year, the event will be held on two days at the Lenin Memorial. The planned number of participants is 2500. Participation is free. Speakers from Mail.ru, Yandex, Google, Badoo, Skype and many others are expected.
ULCAMP - July 2013
In July 2013, the third international festival ULCAMP will be held.
Agilecamp - Summer 2013
After my stories about local IT, Scrumtrack decided to hold a training in the summer of 2013 in Ulyanovsk.
Future
Recently, we often hear from our colleagues from other regions that Ulyanovsk sounds more often and louder. This is due to the openness of companies and the expressed desire to establish horizontal ties. Literally 4 years ago, the situation in our country was not much different from our neighbors - everyone was sitting behind their own "iron curtain" and saw around only attempts to take employees away. In 2010, it became clear that this was a dead end.
Despite the existing disagreements between the companies, we are actively interacting and looking for common ground. For example, everyone is worried about the outflow of specialists to Moscow, and we are learning from each other to create more favorable conditions for employees. Largely due to this, the "brain drain" in the capital is really decreasing. Attracting investment and the emergence of new companies in Ulyanovsk are also in our area of interest. We see how the exchange of experience and technological diversity leads to an increase in the overall technical and organizational level of local companies.
Confident steps have been taken to involve the regional authorities in the civilized support of various aspects of the IT movement. The Ministry of Information Technologies of the Ulyanovsk Region is a sponsor or co-organizer of many useful undertakings. And, although many issues are still being resolved without proper focus and professionalism, there is a chance to rectify the situation and that our example of interaction between private and state initiatives will turn out to be a worthy example for replication in other regions of Russia.