Students of Master's degree Program in Software Engineering of Innopolis University have successfully defended their graduation theses illustrating software products being immediately applied by customer companies.

Graduate students presented their final industry projects developed upon requests of  representatives of the Russian IT industry. Thesis defense was a part of the unique Master's degree program in Software Engineering of Innopolis University that allows experts to boost their career, become Technical Leaders, Software Architects or Project Managers. Working on their final projects, graduates have developed real industry projects together with business partners of the University.

This year, students have delivered products they had been working on in cooperation with AK BARS Bank, Visiology, Acronis, I-Teco, Dnevnik.ru, «SKB Kontur» and Runa Capital. After the project presentation, students received assessment feedback from Innopolis University and representatives of the collaborating companies.

Runa Capital

Scope of the Task: development of a business analytics platform that collects data regarding startups from different sources and runs data mining according to limitations provided by the company. The system is designed to reduce expenses on data analysis and speed up search of relevant startups.

The platform should solve the following tasks:

• collect and store information about startups from a variety of sources like Crunchbase, GitHub, Majestic, etc.;
• merge data received from different sources into a single database;
• run data mining.

Solution: students started with collecting and keeping records of requirements. In particular, they focused on functional requirements and quality attributes of the system to be developed.

Later on, Master's degree students designed an architecture with the specified features. The work was based on the ScrumBan methodology foreseeing weekly meetings with the client which allows the developers team to get a feedback on completed work and make necessary corrections.

Students had to deal with challenges related to the platform development since it requires a certain knowledge and experience. Initially, only one team member knew how to code in Python, the programming language chosen for the project. However, students have quickly mastered the unfamiliar programming language thanks to small seminars held within the team and used a pair-programming technique.

Feedback from the Company: Konstantin Vinogradov, Analyst at Runa Capital Venture Fund:

"We believe that Master's degree students of Innopolis University have done a good job. They developed the major part of software and hardware we ordered, and Runa Capital is already using the product on a regular basis. Of course, there are some process-related details which we believe could be improved. Anyway, we are grateful to Innopolis University for this opportunity and we are looking forward to further cooperation."

AK BARS Bank

Scope of the Task: Development of a mobile application based on Android OS for money transfer between clients of different banks, keeping of data from cards of AK BARS Bank and other banks, creation of money transfer templates.

Solution: Students were to explore new technologies and standards to develop an application that conforms to the company's standards, considering that banking software needs to be extra secured from hacker attacks. Master's degree students have successfully figured out what kind of final product is expected by the client, learned how to work in a team and delivered desired software and hardware to the bank.

Feedback from the Company: Lev Afanasiev, Head of the Office of IT Support of Bank Software, IT Support Department of  «AK BARS Bank:

"Students were challenged with a tricky task which seemed twice as complicated for anyone lacking any experience in the bank sphere. Thus, in the beginning we had a delay on terms, and the team faced a time management problem. In the long run, students managed to catch up and delivered a product that was nearly finished. Some tasks required more time to be finished which we understood and thus reduced their priority status from the very beginning. In general, we are satisfied with the result and pleased with the team’s strong desire to finish the project in full. We would like to continue cooperation with Innopolis University next year.

Visiology

Scope of the Task: Development of a system for semi-automatic configuration of a data storage focused on aggregation and provision of the client-requested information in a user-friendly graphical form from different analytical resources.

Solution: In the midst of work, the team was informed about an urgent reduction of the project timeline as the client needed to deploy the product on its platform this autumn. Thanks to OpenUP, an iterative Agile methodology, graduates finished the project in time. The applied approach helps to adjust to the changing conditions, receive instant feedback from the client and test the product at early development stages.

Feedback from the Company: Ivan Vahmyanin, CEO of "Visiology":

"We were impressed with such good results. As a matter of fact, students were challenged with a task that initially was quite important, but not critical. However, in April, it turned out that the project should be launched this autumn and the timeline was sharply reduced. We had to decide whether to involve our expert team or to rely on students of the IT University. We have chosen the second option and did not regret about it - in September the product will appear on our platform.

This is a positive cooperation experience with Innopolis University which can result in employment of some students by our company.

Dnevnik.ru

Scope of the Task: Development of a mobile application for parents to help them  monitor academic performance of their children.

Solution: Students used a public API of the company to develop the program. They have designed an application allowing parents to check academic performance of their children, monitor the class schedule, scores and home assignments. Once the project was finished, students suggested a list of ideas to improve the company's API.

Feedback from the Company: Alexander Melamud, Product Manager for Mobile Solutions at Dnevnik.ru:

"We definitely enjoyed working with students of Innopolis University. They presented a complete project which can be used after some revision. We have seen many projects presented by students of other universities, but usually they are inapplicable and it is unclear how to use them in future. But this project was a success. The product meets our expectations and we are satisfied with the result".

Acronis

Scope of the Task: Integration of a data warehouse with an OpenStack cloud platform.

Solution: OpenStack is a popular platform supported by the community of major IT companies like IBM, Cisco, Intel, etc. Most of the team members chose the project because of the interesting topic. However, students did not think of the fact that tasks set by these companies are usually complicated in technical terms and require in-depth knowledge of a wide range of technologies. For this reason, the team failed to implement the full range of features requested by the client. The project is one-third complete and requires more efforts before it can be applied.

The team has found a few bugs in used libraries, thus helping the company to finish the program.

Feedback from the Company: Alexander Kirov, Product Manager at Acronis:

"Students have shown a good level of knowledge. Working on the project, they had to deal with complex technical issues, new technologies and products. And they have successfully passed this test. Unfortunately, the project was not fully completed as we planned. But this is not a problem. The foundation is laid, and we are to enable further development of the project. I am sure, that the most active and involved students will continue working on the solution as part of the company's team. Students made a good impression on Acronis and the company is going to suggest a more interesting project next year. "

I-Teco

Scope of the Task: Development of a single point of entry into the Terem system creating private clouds.

Solution: Master's degree students studied the client's requirements and a list of existing solutions. They found tools allowing to save a considerable amount of resources and implement the client's idea. As a result, the team has developed a single entry and user management system for Terem, a virtualization tool for building VDI/VPS corporate systems.

Feedback from the Company: Vladimir Pavlov, Leading Engineer of the Software Solutions Department at I-Teco:

"In general, everything was perfect. But we expected to receive the product earlier. As a client, we were disappointed that we had to wait for realization of the project for quite a long time. However, we understand that it is acceptable in the framework of cooperation with the students.

For us it is a new form of interaction with Innopolis University and we are satisfied with the final result. Now we have a better understanding of how it works – we see that students combine their own research and work on industry projects. So, next time we will set other project delivery terms".

SKB Kontur

Scope of the Task: Development of an application for a small and medium-size business that will become an effective tool for creation of primary accounting documentation i.e. bills, invoices, etc..

Solution: Initially, students of Master's degree program in Software Engineering had to cope with technical challenges. In fact, there was a problem with fast data entry, automated user input, error control and ergonomic design. They combined studies with a large amount of project work what influenced the process of project implementation. Nevertheless, the client received a final product with a user-friendly interface and high-speed document filling ensured by multiple integrations with additional information sources (Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Central Bank of the Russian Federation, and All-Russian Classifier of Addresses) and control system for user errors and prompts.

Feedback from the Company: Alexey Zverev, Head of the Office of Educational Programs of  «SKB Kontur»:

"We highly appreciate results of our cooperation. The team was challenged with an ambitious task. Meanwhile, delivery terms were rather tight which is normal for business in the IT industry. However, it worked out pretty well. We had a great team of students, who have initially demonstrated a high level of autonomy and liability when working on the Kontur.Documents project – starting from building of customer relations up to interaction with experts of the company, who provided necessary support in terms of design, layout and testing.

So far, the service itself and three widgets has been successfully integrated in the main product and are available to real clients. Of course, the company is satisfied with results and we would like to take part in industrial projects in the future.