Penza, 24 April 2015. PenzaNews. The 7th inter-regional conference of software developers “Secon” was successfully held in Penza State University on Friday, April 24.

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It was organized by an association of software developers “Secon” and JSC “Center of cluster development.”

Among the officials present at the opening ceremony, was Minister of Education of the Penza region Alexander Voronkov, who noted the applicable component of the conference, showing growth points for the IT-industry professionals.

“Information technologies are advanced technologies. There is no need to say that today all the industry, the economy is based on them,” he said.

As Maxim Semenkin, chairman of the organizing committee - president of the software developers’ association “Secon,” stressed, that the Penza event aims at building a bridge between experienced professionals and students, as well as establishing business connections between software developers from different regions of the country.

In turn, Anton Sergeev, chairman of the organizing committee, added that the event will be a one more factor consolidating the regional IT-community, it will become a source of new ideas and innovative approaches.

Specialized forum was followed by a round table dedicated to the development of IT-cluster companies. The honored guest present at the round table was Vasily Bochkarev, governor of the Penza region.

“I think we need to work together more closely in schools. That is the present-day resource. In fact, it is not only the resource of the future, but also of the present,” the head of the region noted.

He wished the representatives of IT-sphere that their initiatives always found financial support.

“There ideas, but they are impossible to implement without the united resources,” the governor explained.

In turn, the PSU rector Alexander Gulyakov drew attention to the fact that the university is focusing on the interaction of science and practice.

“We have something to share with you in this field. Firstly, we prepare diversified specialists, from mathematical software to information technology in the economy. Secondly, we have good works in the research and development fields. I see my task in proving the ground for joint efforts, cooperation, argument, work on some ideas and maybe even coming up with specific developments,” he said.

The main conference work was organized in sections “Technology,” “Databases,” “Management” and “Start-ups.” Within each section the speakers, including those invited from other regions, made presentations and held workshops.

The conference also included negotiation rooms, co-working platforms and expositions. Of special interest was a mobile exhibition of the entertaining science museum “Reaktor.” The IT-community representatives enthusiastically participated in show-zone exposition, conducting physical experiments using interactive museum equipment.

The event attracted attention of both software developers and web designers, project managers and the beginning specialists.

Software developers’ conference “Secon” was first held in Penza in 2007.

Since 2013, it received support of the government of the Penza region. In 2014, the event was joined by “Center of cluster development.”

The event is intended to help and solve pressing problems specific to the IT-industry. Among them is the low popularity of software developer profession, lack of educated graduates, their detachment from the real life and, consequently, dramatic shortage of skilled workers.