HPE Bulgaria supports American University Hackathon 2024

[BELovattUK]

Kiril Todorov, Software Developer at HPE who mentored at Hackathon 2024

March 2024 marked the 6^th edition of Hackathon by the American University in Bulgaria. Hackathon is a platform for students, professionals, and entrepreneurs to come together and develop solutions for real-world problems. HPE Bulgaria was invited to support the event by dedicating one of their experts as a mentor to a group of students. Without any doubts, Kiril Todorov, Software Developer, raised a hand and jumped in. Overall, 89 students divided into 17 teams spent over 52 hours brainstorming and prototyping their ideas.

We invited Kiril to share more about the event:

Q: Why did you accept to be a mentor in the AUBG Hackathon? What was your motivational factor?

A: Mentoring allows me to share my knowledge and expertise with future software developers, which I like doing. I see it as a chance to contribute to the growth and development of the next generation of talent in the tech industry.

Q: What was your group project?

A: The theme of the Hackathon was “Big Data in the World of Business”. For example, one of the groups of students I was mentoring was developing an application to gather huge amounts of sales data from various physical shops, then analyzing the data and giving the shops useful information and predictions about their sales.

Q: What are your impressions of the event? What observations can you share about the young talents and students?

A: My impressions are overwhelmingly positive, the event was very well organized, and a great job by the people behind it. And it was full of enthusiastic and passionate individuals with different backgrounds and skills. What surprised me was that there were not just university students, but also a lot of high-school students, which goes to show that software development is becoming more and more popular these days.

Q: What were your responsibilities as a mentor?  What did you take as experience, knowledge, and lessons learned?

A: Every mentor presents their skills and then, throughout the day, they are booked for consultations with various teams. Interacting with participants from diverse backgrounds and skill sets definitely enhanced my communication skills and pushed me outside of my comfort zone. Furthermore, it gave me valuable insights about what’s currently trendy in the tech world.

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