D-Day for Challenge Accepted III, launch day for 5 products built from scratch by our students

The Challenge Accepted competition, now in its third edition, carried forward the tradition of challenges launched by the Informal School of IT. D-Day this time was April 1st, and it came with an impressive dose of perseverance and energy, after an intense period of learning and experimentation the School's students went through. Each of them successfully simulated the role they'll have in IT companies.

Driven by a passion for technology and curiosity, 100 students from the Software Testing, development (.NET Web Development, PHP Web Development and Java Development), UX Design, Business Analysis and Project Management programs accepted the challenge. That of working in multidisciplinary teams toward a common goal, of splitting and prioritizing tasks to work efficiently, of raising the bar through self-motivation whenever they felt overwhelmed by difficult situations. The challenge of going through a first experience as close as possible to the realities of the industry, which they'll be able to proudly present to future employers.

An  exercise in communication and collaboration, adaptability, organization and patience, and commitment. That's what Challenge Accepted III was about.

In the beginning, there was the idea

 

Over 90% of participants come from a variety of backgrounds completely unrelated to IT, but they successfully went through an important first lesson for their future career in this industry: working against the clock. Over 2 months, each of them tested their own ambition, working to turn simple ideas into real applications. That meant constant communication between team members, invested energy and consistency. All of it coming together with long working hours, liters of coffee (from 10 PM onward!) and the victory of "I won't give up".

In January, the students listed the ideas with the potential to become applications, which they pre-validated together with the mentors and their classmates.

We started from an idea. Nothing else: just an idea. A very good saying goes that having a good idea isn't enough, you also have to put it into practice. And that's exactly what we did

In April, the same students presented, in front of an audience made up of the competition jury (trainers from the School), HR representatives from local IT companies, entrepreneurs and their other classmates, the fruits of their labor:  the projects born from those simple ideas.

 

The ideas of the Informal School of IT's students became feasible applications

   

Dentist Appointments – Award for The most straightforward idea, fastest time to market

"Our application allows online appointment booking at the dentist. We worked in 2-week sprints, we picked certain user stories, implemented them and validated them. At the end of each sprint we did a review, drew some conclusions and moved forward – either improving them or setting the next user stories we needed. We learned to communicate, to collaborate and, most importantly, to reach a common goal together".

  DENTIST APPOINTMENT    

Livelocal – Award for the most successful project – Challenge Accepted III

"Today it's very easy to travel. In 10 seconds you can find out how to get to the Colosseum or the Eiffel Tower. But is that what you want to get out of a vacation? I believe we can offer more than that. That's why, together with my colleagues, we created Live Local. We implemented 7 features, wrote 25 user stories with specific acceptance criteria, allocated more than 270 test cases, and there were more than 100 tasks in the code base. We collaborated very well".

  LIVELOCAL    

PaperPigeon – Award for Best Documentation and Personal Touch

"Our application is about buying personalized greeting cards, which are physically sent to the recipient. We validated our idea by first running a survey on a sample of over 90 people. We implemented features such as: registration and login, account management – from the user's perspective and from the administrator's perspective, a landing page, a home page, a search feature, a card editor, and a shopping cart".  

  PAPERPIGEON

A unique element of the competition: challenges launched by entrepreneur clients

Two of the teams taking part in the Challenge Accepted III competition accepted the challenge launched by Iulian Pădurariu and Carmen Deac, clients whose ambassadors they became. They stepped into their shoes, understood their needs, adapted. Step by step, through work and collaboration, receptiveness and patience, the clients' ideas were brought to the MVP stage by the students of the Informal School of IT.

   

IT4Kids – Award for Invest in the future
Client: Carmen Deac

"Our application, IT4Kids, started from an innovative idea. We're addressing kids who will learn to code in a new way. I have to tell you it took a lot of work, a lot of collaboration. We managed to see through what we set out to do. The project was full of challenges, but we had the help of the trainers and the clients – whom we thank".  

  IT4KIDS    

Replenti – Award for HighTech App
Client: Iulian Pădurariu

"Replenti is a revolutionary solution that automatically and intelligently restocks you periodically with the products you choose through the application. As of today, after very many hours of work, we've reached an MVP that lets the user log in, create an account, subscribe to a plan, build a shopping list, set up a profile and place an order. We were agile and we adapted".  

  REPLENTI  

Appreciation from the jury, and from local IT companies too

 

They're marked by extensive experience in IT, involvement in countless projects nationally and internationally, the hours of guidance and mentoring they've offered to generations of the Informal School of IT's students, as well as a genuine interest in technology, innovation and education. Claudia Lonean – QA specialist, Relu Bojan, Project Management specialist, Iulian Corunga – UX Design specialist and Andreea Văculișteanu – with expertise in Business Analysis, were part of the jury for the third edition of Challenge Accepted.

 

 

Without a podium or ceremonies, but informally, the experienced trainers appreciated the participants' efforts, gave them critical and firm feedback, and strongly stressed that they're looking forward to news about all the implementation teams continuing their projects. The stamp of the School's hands-on approach was appreciated by representatives of local IT companies, interested in recruiting the most competitive students.

Every one of you in the competition worked extraordinarily hard. All the projects impressed us, it was something fantastic: building a real project within 2 months. Well done to all of you! 

– said Relu Bojan, closing the third edition of Challenge Accepted.

Congratulations to everyone involved!

Do or do not. There is no try.

Projects within interdisciplinary teams are part of the standard curriculum of the Informal School of IT.

INTRODUCTION, TRAINING AND SPECIALIZATION IN IT