The competition of gifted secondary school students in creating mobile applications – Regional app challenge , has been held for a sixth time in a row with the participation of secondary school students of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro. Members of the Telekom Srbija Group – Telekom Srbija, m:tel BiH and m:tel Crna Gora were the organizers of the competition, while m:tel BiH was the host to this year’s regional competition.
Five teams of the said countries respectively presented their applications, which are the best on the national plane, at a video conference, given that this year the competition was held in an online format. The jury selected as the best the following applications: “Dođi na red” by the Jovan Jovanović Zmaj Grammar School team of Novi Sad, “Digitalni farmer” by the Technical School team of Gradiška and “Trebovanje” by the Electrical and Economic Secondary School team of Bijelo Polje. The Power of Innovation – Igor Osmokrović special award went to the Boljai Grammar School team of Senta for their application Tower Defence Game.
In a video message, the participants in the regional competition were welcomed by Telekom Srbija CEO Vladimir Lučić who said that Telekom Srbija Group was endeavouring to encourage young people and present them with an opportunity to develop their ideas and talents in order for them to become the catalysts of positive change in their environments in the future. “Parallel to the advancement we are making through the development of cutting-edge services, tailored to customer needs, and expansion to new markets, we continue to lend support to the community we are operating in. We are also aware of the importance of education and development of younger generations and that is why we are particularly focusing on investments in that field. We have recognized you as the catalysts of development of our society because it is through applications you develop that you bring new ideas which contribute to our daily lives and facilitate our coping in a world of state-of-the-art fast communications”, said Vladimir Lučić.
On behalf of the host company, m:tel BiH CEO Jelena Trivan addressed the participants and said she was very pleased with the students’ great interest in the competition. “For a fourth consecutive time this year among the best is the same student who expands his knowledge thanks to this competition every year. I assume he and many other participants will become distinguished and recognized figures in this sphere of technology. I am glad that the Telekom Srbija Group, and m:tel are helping you to develop as new young talents and I hope we will assist you in placing your applications on the market as well. Good luck to you!”, Jelena Trivan concluded.
From Montenegro, the executive director of m:tel Montenegro, Tatjana Mandić, addressed the participants and said that the advantage of this project was that it traditionally connected people with the same vision and demonstrated the readiness of talented secondary school students to practically apply the knowledge acquired at school. “Regardless of your rankings in today’s competition, you have every reason to be happy, because with your work you have acquired the opportunity to show what you know and what your potential is”, Tatjana Mandić said and added that the Telekom Srbija Group, i.e. m:tel Montenegro, will be pleased to witness their further achievements.
Aleksa Dejanović, Boško Vasilić and Marko Ristić, members of the winning team from Serbia, said that they were especially glad that they had participated in the Regional app challenge and won the main prize in the competition of quality and well-designed applications. “The award gives us additional incentive for further work and future projects, and we believe that socially responsible projects like this are an excellent opportunity for secondary school students, because they signal them that their work and effort are highly valued”, said the members of the Macrohard team of Novi Sad’s Jovan Jovanović Zmaj Secondary School.
The members of the “Tower Power” team, Mark Bujdošo, Robert Nagy and Janos Horvat, said they had seriously prepared for the presentation of the applications and added that their being able to see the interesting solutions of other participants meant a lot to them. “We learnt a lot from the presentations of other teams, and the suggestions and constructive criticisms we received from the jury are especially important to us. We are very glad that we were part of the Regional app challenge”, the members of the Boljai Grammar School team of Senta concluded.
The winners of the sixth Regional app challenge will be awarded prizes in the form of valuable IT equipment, while the members of the team whose application was selected by the jury as the most innovative will receive cutting-edge mobile handsets.
Companies within the Telekom Srbija Group will continue to base their socially responsible operations on the practice of organizing such and similar contests, in terms of encouraging young people to foster true values and invest their time in acquiring fresh knowledge.
