On April 28-29, the International Youth Competition-Conference “Safety of Information Technologies for the Next Generation”, organized by “Kaspersky Lab”, took place in Moscow.
The work of the “Cryptography System” by magistracy student of Computer Systems and Information Science Department of State Engineering University of Armenia (SEUA) Nina Azizyan was awarded one of the three top diplomas at the competition.
Nina Azizyan answered the questions of Itel.am portal.
- Your work won at Kaspersky Lab competition. How and when was the work carried out and how can it be applied in practice?
- The report on “Cryptography System” won at the competition: the competition was scientific and the participants presented reports on this or that work. The work itself was carried out two years ago to be applied in practical and laboratory activities at our University. All in all, about 20 students worked over the “Cryptography System”.
Our work is unique in its type and contains quite volume information on cryptographic, encoding algorithms. We searched for such type of work in the Web; however we failed to find anything similar to that.
The cryptography system, elaborated by us, is successfully used in educational process at SEUA. We also plan to work out an online mode for education in our higher educational institution for students, who are not in Armenia, to be able to use the cryptography system in their laboratory and practical activities.
- How did the participation in this competition benefit you? Can it open up new scientific and commercial opportunities for you?
- After winning at the competition, I received a few offers for cooperation from educational institutions in Russia. Russian educational establishments took an interest in the “Cryptography System” and now negotiations are in process on translating it into Russian.
Besides, victory in the competition gave our University the opportunity to become a member of “Kaspersky Lab” Academy, and the fact will allow using all the lectures and scientific works of the laboratory. This is of special importance, since starting September, 2009, I will teach at SEUA the subject of “Computer Viruses”, and the use of such competent information will be very useful.
This fall, jointly with “Kaspersky Lab” Company a conference will be organized in Yerevan, the subject area of which will be chosen by the Armenian side. Establishment of “Kaspersky Lab” subdivision in Armenia is also possible.
- Representatives of Armenian IT companies often complain that the graduates are not ready specialists and the companies have to spend much time and resource to train personnel. Do you agree to such a statement?
- I believe that not a single higher educational institution is able to prepare a specialist so that he/she takes up work immediately. However, the specific nature of information technologies is its speedy development, which the educational system falls behind. Nevertheless, the educational basis, which our university, and, in particular, my faculty provides, allows quickly orienting oneself on the spot.
- What role can the young specialists play in real development of IT in Armenia?
- Young specialists not only can, but they do play a huge role in IT development in Armenia. Information technologies develop like weed, and the future belongs to these very young specialists. They are creative, full of ideas and enthusiasm. As to this issue, they only need a bit support from the state and financial institutions to provide the students and young specialists with opportunities to participate in various conferences, seminars to gain experience and apply it in practice in Armenia.
- In his recent interview to our agency, Vice-President of ABBYY Software Company Aram Pakhchanyan expressed confidence that for generation and future commercialization of ideas in the sphere of IT a certain university or a group of universities should become centers for crystallization and accumulation of creative work by young people. “Here we talk about a certain form of a live incubator, in which at first glance reckless ideas will be born, which may become of interest and may attract venture capitalists”, he noted. According to you, can such a model be efficient in Armenia?
- Representation of “Kaspersky Lab” can become an example of such a model in Armenia, where young specialists would be able to elaborate various programs, realize ideas. Our young specialists possess huge potential, which should be focused in one direction. And the Armenian laboratory may become a peculiar center for generation of ideas in the sphere of IT. One should only establish normal conditions and opportunities for that.
