Four Armenian students, who graduated from the Samsung Innovation Campus (SIC) programme at UWC Dilijan, were among 19 finalists chosen from 64 entries for the 2024 Samsung Mobile App Development Competition "IT School Chooses the Best!" held 3-4 July. Two of them were awarded prizes in two of the three categories:
● 3rd place in "Programming" category: Levon Nazinyan, “Day Buddy” app, supervisor - Mikayel Elizbaryan.
● 3rd place in "Social Application" category: Arsen Anoyan, “Librant” app, supervisor - Arsen Davtyan.
The other two students whose mobile applications were presented at the competition were:
● “Programming" category: Hayk Zazhyan, “Health Manager” app, supervisor - Arsen Davtyan.
● "Social Application" category: David Karapatyan, “Twaddle New” app, supervisor - Mikayel Elizbaryan.
Together with partners, Samsung runs SIC programmes at over 50 sites in Russia and one - at UWC Dilijan in Armenia. It was the second year of the SIC programme implementation at UWC Dilijan with 90 graduates. A requirement for completing the course by each student is the development of mobile applications on the Android OS. Top-rated mobile applications are nominated for the Samsung international competition. The final selection of applications are then presented by categories - "Games", “Programming” and “Social Application” - to an evaluation panel consisting of Samsung-certified instructors, educators in the field of computer science and tech industry representatives. This year there were 64 entries across sites, 19 selected for the final, with 4 of them from SIC at UWC Dilijan. As last year, SIC Dilijan demonstrated a high level of achievement.
UWC Dilijan received a special mention in the new category "The Best Start". It was noted by Samsung that since the launch of the programme in 2022, UWC Dilijan has demonstrated brilliant results, both in terms of the quality of students' projects and the programme completion rate, which is higher than on any other site.
“We are absolutely delighted with the results. The four students, who presented mobile applications, developed them to the highest standards. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to our instructors, who ensured the consistent effort and quality of the work. We all work very hard and it is rewarding to be recognised as the best-performing site with top SIC programme completion rate,” said Vardan Avagyan, SIC Project Manager at UWC Dilijan.
Speaking at the competition opening, Veronika Zonabend, Co-Founder and Chair of the Board of UWC Dilijan, said, “ Samsung IT School has proven to be a catalyst for developing the skills and talents of Armenia’s youth. The enthusiasm for technological innovation among these young minds is remarkable. It's inspiring to see students dedicating their weekends to work diligently in Samsung’s labs, striving for excellence. We take immense pride in our role in building bridges between nations through the innovation and technology programmes.”
“We believe that as the current level of IT technologies rises and they penetrate every sphere of life, the knowledge and experience gained during a year of intensive studying in Samsung IT School will be useful to children in the future, no matter what direction of further study and work theу choose,” added Sergey Pevnev, VP of Samsung Electronics Headquarters for CIS countries.
