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Starting a New Edition of the “Discover Your Call in IT” Program

The 3rd edition of the “Discover your call in IT” program has already started, gathering once again private companies from the Cluj area and school and faculty representatives interested in helping the enthusiastic high school students eager to start a career in IT.

Over a 6 month period, 120 high school students, grouped in teams, will get familiarized with working in the IT environment, gaining hands-on experience under the guidance of a software engineer mentor. Additionally, participants will attend courses on various programming concepts and languages, as well as soft skills training sessions.

Discover Your Call in IT

Started as a mentoring initiative of Fortech and joined by the “Avram Iancu” high school, the “Discover your call in IT” program has rapidly evolved throughout the years and is now crystallized as an independent project, organized by the D.P.I.T. Association. The 2017 edition of the mentorship and education program is supported by nine important players of the Romanian IT industry, nine schools from Cluj-Napoca and the surrounding areas and two institutional partners.

“We believe in the transformative power of education. We think education should ensure the development of both theoretical and practical skills.  Both can be acquired through the exposure to different learning contexts, which the business and academic sectors should create. We are glad to support the “Discover your call in IT” program and to see more partners involved in its development”, said Călin Văduva, Fortech’s CEO.

“Discover your call in IT” is a best practice for a successful public-private partnership targeting the education field. So far, the program has had over 300 high school students and over 70 mentors, teachers and trainers actively involved. More than 40 impressive projects have been developed by students with the support of professionals from the partner companies.

For example, the winners of the last year’s edition of the program built an application that allows users to unlock a door remotely, just by using a smartphone. The project is called Lockee and the team was mentored by one of Fortech’s software engineers. Have a look at their project here.

We are glad to be a part of this initiative and look forward to seeing another group of high school students find their path along their mentors and develop amazing and useful real-life applications.