Head of Research and Development Oleg Gubin: "There are positive results, but we do not plan to stop there"
One of the reasons why we decided to create OxaLab is the lack of expertise in the Belarusian IT community in the field of modern intelligent systems. And we decided not to wait for her to appear, but arranged a "sowing"! We are implementing this project together with BSU: we started with the Faculty of Radiophysics and Computer Technologies. The first set is from there. This is a good opportunity for us to practice, build a competent process, because the faculty itself is small. Now we have knowledge that we want and are ready to share, but there is no final methodology.
We were burned by the fact that many students first come just to see what it is, and then realize that this is not about them and not for them. And we do not force. This should be taken into account when planning the mentor load. We had lectures on a weekly basis with periodic exams and defense of our own projects. I can say that we received useful and necessary educational skills in the first courses. The instructor was Ksenia Meshkova, Chief AI Scientist Oxagile.
Naturally, during training, we closely follow promising children: their dynamics, independence, responsibility and willingness to learn. In January 2020, after defending our own design work, we made an offer to one of the participants to join the Oxagile team as an intern.
Chief AI Scientist Ksenia Meshkova - course instructor
- Tell us what topics were covered in the course?
Ksenia: the course covered classical topics, such as: the mathematical foundations of neural networks and deep learning, the basics of probabilistic modeling and filtering algorithms, classical computer vision algorithms, as well as the nuances of working in the video domain along with the specifics of the tasks that we encountered in yourself in the department.
- How did you prepare for the classes?
Ksenia: I usually prepared a presentation and code with examples for classes. Sometimes it was necessary to take care of the training in advance, since the time allotted for the lesson did not allow teaching "online".
- What personal experience did you get in the teaching process?
Ksenia: In my opinion, I learned to consider problems from different angles, since all people are individual, thinking is different, and sometimes the questions had to be approached from different angles.
- What do you think were the impressions of the graduates from the course?
Ksenia: The most persistent, those who were really interested and who wanted to develop in this area, reached the end. As they met and lectured, the guys became bolder and more active.
Intern R&D Engineer Vladislav Medvedev: "Probably, they never saw me so happy."
- Tell us how you learned about the courses and why you decided to go to them?
- I learned about the courses quite by accident. At a meeting where Natalya Lagun (head of recruiting Oxagile) talked about them, I was not even there. Oxagile learned about the visit in the evening when he returned to the hostel. There, out of my ears, I heard a neighbor tell the freshmen that they had come from Oxagile and talked about learning related to neural networks and video. The next morning I flew headlong to the pulpit to find out what and how.
I signed up for the courses because I have long wanted to learn how to write neural networks that will be used everywhere in the future. But there were no face-to-face classes with normal practice. And then there is such an opportunity and minimum requirements.
- What did the courses give you? What did you help to upgrade?
- During the courses, I got a clear understanding of what architectures are used and where. After each lesson, you are told what and where to read in order to develop not only a general understanding, but also applied things. And then you yourself, having a direction for development, read and stare until you get tired. You yourself involuntarily begin to understand which articles or architectures are not very good, how to properly prepare the data, and so on. In general, to show how useful the courses are, suffice it to say that I sometimes notice mistakes in lectures at the university. And after the courses, I can calmly communicate with the teachers in our native language.
- Did you know about Oxagile before the courses?
- No, I didn't know. I only heard from fellow students who work next to us that Oxagile has a cool office and people are talking enthusiastically about work.
- Have you attended courses in other companies? Where did you like it more?
- I took courses at EPAM when I just started programming. And, frankly, the presentation of the material can never be compared to that of Oxagile, although the lectures there were interesting. The advantages of Oxa courses are that, in addition to classroom lectures and useful practice, every time you are sent articles, videos that you can read and watch. This helps to plunge deeper into the wonderful world of neural networks.
- So, at the beginning you planned to become a programmer?
- Even before the courses, I imagined myself as an ordinary developer who solves standard tasks: servers, scripts, etc. But from the very first lessons it became clear to me that I did not want to be a developer. Here at Oxagile, working with different architectures, you have to solve complex problems, sit for hours and think about only one part of it. And what a thrill you get when you see the fruits of your work. Therefore, it is very easy to catch Zen here. Yes, and I'm not looking for easy ways. Now I can confidently say that being a developer is not for me. And the courses clearly made it clear and determine what I will do next.
- What emotions did you have when you were offered an internship at a company?
- It was very unexpected. Probably, they never saw me so happy. That day it was very difficult for me to get through, because I spent an hour, or even two, telling how much it would change my life. The state can be described with the line: "And the soul sang and danced." But not only I was happy, but also my mother and grandmother, who said: "Well, at last you will have already decided what to do in life." Yes, I'm such a fidget.
- How are your first working days? What did you note for yourself?
- Thanks to the good base that they gave in the courses, it is much easier to cope with all the tasks, but you still have to read and watch a lot, because the world of neural networks is vast. And I'm not at all sure if I will ever be able to read and watch everything.
For a week of work, I can say the following: computers question
I have a great team that is always ready to help if you don't understand something or are just stuck in one place.
The office has a productive atmosphere that encourages you to work and work.
There is an excellent book base for training. I don’t even have to google because almost everything is in the books.
Delicious coffee on the floor. If not for him, I would have been awakened several times already.
The company employs excellent HR and Team Assistant who do not let you drown in a sea of questions: "How? And what? And where to go?"
