FRUCT Initiative - General Description

    Attempts to somehow raise the profile of university programmer education are now being undertaken by so many. But in order for serious specialists to hatch from the institute, there is no need to turn mountains at all, but only:
    • do substantive diplomas
    • update educational programs
    • involve programmers from real companies in teaching practice, and academic staff in teaching theory
    • enable students to participate in this software development
    Some of these tasks are addressed by the FRUCT program initiated by Nokia Research center .

    Many have heard about the research centers of large corporations. The guys who work there are experiencing relatively greater freedom than gathering them in the product manufacturing department. In addition to the development of fundamentally new types of devices or software, employees of research centers often deal with strategic tasks of the company, namely, the search for new ideas and cooperation with universities. These are Intel Education, centers at Microsoft and Nokia.
    The initiative of the latter will be discussed

    A general look at FRUCT


    Background - what is being done


    The following people participate in the FRUCT project (Finnish-Russian University Co-operation Priogram in Telecommunications):
    • students of specialties related to computer science, who are interested in their specialty and cannot wait to try themselves in business
    • university employees who are engaged in scientific work and, as a rule, combine it with software development
    • technical experts of software companies that act as consultants
    • FRUCT observers who can select the most interesting ideas and projects for development in research centers, or people for job invitations

    The interaction scheme between all of them can be of two main types:
    • the student, together with the teacher, selects a topic of interest and suggests FRUCT to support the project. From the development side, novelty and prospects are important.
    • Some project topics can be proposed by the organizers of FRUCT. If they are interested in teachers and university students, they take up the job.

    An important note is that these activities are carried out both in Russia and in Finland. Projects may also apply to both countries.

    Foreground - what is shown


    The results of projects - software products or devices, reports at seminars and conferences are exposed to the public. The periodic FRUCT workshop is designed to summarize subtotals and project reports. As part of this workshop, thematic trainings are often held.

    Benefit and Benefit


    For student and teacher


    • First of all, this is participation in real software projects under good leadership. If necessary, FRUCT identifies experts who help solve technical issues.
    • The same thing with paid standards, rare and expensive devices, software, conference fees. If necessary, these things can and should be requested,
    • Establishing relationships and creating workable development teams,
    • Academic benefit - writing diplomas and scientific papers based on project material,

    For organizers (guesses)


    • initiating sustainable teams of software developers with whom you can collaborate and from where you can recruit staff
    • networking with universities for research support

    Actually projects


    The main areas of activity: Open Source development (mainly for Symbian and Maemo platforms), “Smart Spaces” (smart homes and cities, Semantic web ...), wireless networks, mobile devices. Project descriptions can be found here .

    Everyone is welcome!


    The next FRUCT seminar will be held in St. Petersburg on April 29-30. Programming training for the Maemo platform is also planned.

    Also popular now: