Open Tech Week – a signature series of charity meetups aimed at experience exchange and live networking by Sigma Software – has ended its year round across our Ukrainian offices. This year, Open Tech Week events took place in Kharkiv, Lviv, Kyiv, and finished up in Odesa.

Sigma Software launched its charity and educational project named Open Tech Week two years ago. The idea was to hold a week of meetups where each day is devoted to different technologies and trending topics for IT industry in Ukraine. The new format suited the needs of IT community, because it provided highly specialized speeches and chamberlike setting ideal for Communication, and what is also important – a great opportunity to help needy people. All the funds raised during Open Tech Weeks are sent to local charity foundations.

 

Over the year 2018, we delivered 4 events in Kharkiv, Lviv, Kyiv, and Odesa, including 20 meetups and up-to-date speeches from 38 talented and experienced speakers, and managed to collect more than 100,000 UAH. All together we met about 1,200 new faces and old friends within this period.

The most popular topics to talk and discuss during 2018 were JavaScript, Project Management, and Software Testing. Specific topics for advanced audience became Embedded, Cyber Security, and Human Resources Management, directions that were quite new for Open Tech Week.

 

Every time, before we start to a new city to another Open Tech Week event in action, we learn about local demands and find a small local charity foundation that addresses real issues of the local community. This year, we helped four charity foundations:  in Kharkiv – Hope and Future Fund providing summer vacation for needy children, in Lviv – Wings of Hope Fund purchasing medical equipment for children hospitals, in Kyiv Everybody Can Organization conducting rehabilitation courses for children in ward, and in Odesa – Corporation of Monsters buying special furniture and rehabilitation games for children in Ananiev orphan home.

“Open Tech Week event is a part of our corporate social responsibility strategy. Sigma Software invests a lot of resources in development of IT eco-system in Ukraine every year. First of all, we create our own platform for knowledge sharing called Sigma Software University. On its basis, many actual courses and programs are developed both for beginners and mature IT specialists today. We support professional conferences all over the country: more than twenty events just in 2018,” says Valery Krasovsky, Co-founder and CEO at Sigma Software.

We, in Sigma Software, believe that education and charity is a perfect match. Our Open Tech Week events offer everyone an opportunity to help others: for our speakers – to share their hard-earned knowledge and facilitate progress of IT industry, for our visitors – to transfer funds to charity funds in their native city. We are sure that a highly-educated society is prone to high social responsiveness, and we do our bit in planting these qualities in our society.  This is our way for a smart implementation of CSR strategy.

Next year, we are going to set off a new round of Open Tech Weeks in Kyiv. Don’t miss your chance to get some knowledge and make your city a better place.