What Professionals IT Industry will Need Tomorrow?
Within the framework of the 10th anniversary forum BankIT, held from 19 to 21 November, a round table meeting was organized. It was dedicated to the issues of training IT professionals. Representatives from the HTP Administration, Ministry of Education, specialized regional and Minsk higher education institutions, and educational centers as well as from Sberbank of Russia and the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus tried to find new solutions for a longstanding topical problem – an acute lack of IT professionals in the banking industry, among others.
Alexander Martinkevich, Deputy Director of the HTP Administration, served as moderator for the event. Anticipating the need for new IT professions, he said: “In todays IT market there is a demand for professionals who work with large amounts of data. It grows by 30-40% annually. The boom for IT professionals who is able to work with large amounts of data is going to start in a few years, so it is high time we began to train them." In theory, the Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science of the Belarusian State University can be engaged in training such students. The situation is more difficult with professionals in 2D and 3D computer graphics. Companies need people who are able to create a design for an application or a computer game from a technical standpoint. "Unfortunately, we, unlike Italy, Sweden, do not have a school of design, but we have great mathematicians and software engineers. Now we are looking for foreign professionals in the field of computer graphics and design, who could train students in Belarus," noted Alexander Martinkevich.
Skills and competencies requirements for IT professionals are changing in the atmosphere of created in Belarus favorable conditions for the development of IT industry, the enlargement of its functions, and the successful implementation of new software solutions and technologies. Even today, the theoretical knowledge provided by schools is not enough for students to be in demand in the labor market. In turn, the higher education institutions alone cannot predict the direction of IT industry development and what knowledge young professionals will need in 5-10 years. Therefore, the interaction of all stakeholders is necessary to address the problem effectively.
The IT sphere in Belarus is developing rapidly, so the issue of training professionals for the Belarusian IT-industry is going to remain open and urgent for a long time. The problem is clearly defined – it is time to act and put forward concrete proposals. The Hi-Tech Park has made great efforts to solve the problem of the lack of personnel for the last 3-4 years. By now, the HTP resident-companies have created more than 60 joint research and production laboratories in all leading universities, about 15 branches of university departments operates on the premises of the IT companies. The HTP resident-companies and the Belarusian universities signed over 50 agreements on cooperation.
