Y Soft’s Collaboration with Academia

This article provides information and statistics collected over the last eight years on selected activities within the scope of our Applied Research and University Relations (ARUR) program.
 
 

Another Successful Year for Collaboration

This academic year, we collaborated with more than 35 students. These students have worked on their theses, and either an internship or a part-time job at Y Soft. Considering the size of our R&D team and the demands placed on them, this is a great result. Thanks to everyone in Y Soft R&D for supporting the program!
 


Theses

During the last eight years, 80 theses produced in collaboration with Y Soft have been successfully defended. The number of bachelor and master theses was almost the same (41 vs. 39, respectively). Both academic quality and practical application are important to us. Therefore, we focus on maintaining a high percentage of “A” and “B” grades. For the last eight years, this percentage has been above 75%. Adding to this success are the Dean Awards, awarded to eight of the theses.
 
Over the last academic year, 17 students defended their theses with Y Soft:
  • Twelve from the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University
  • Four from both the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication and the Faculty of Information Technology, Brno University of Technology
  • One from the Faculty of Information Technology, Czech Technical University in Prague
The theses covered a large spectrum of topics, including:
  • ICT security, with a focus on static and dynamic code analysis tools
  • Monitoring in distributed systems
  • Technologies for developing mobile device applications
  • Artificial intelligence for our robotic arm
The percentage of “A” and “B” grades for the last academic year is slightly below the average and is approximately 65%. One of the theses received a Dean Award.
 
 

Part-time

During the last eight years, 30 students were given part-time jobs at Y Soft within the scope of ARUR. 17 part-time contracts are still running, and some of these students have been working on their bachelor's or master's thesis for over a year. 29 of the 30 students were from universities, but we also had a high school student:
  • 20 students from the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University
  • 9 from both the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication and the Faculty of Information Technology, Brno University of Technology
  • One high school student
 

Student competitions

We are pleased to support and help organize several competitions. The competition for “Talented Students” is intended for students from the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University who are in their first or second year of bachelor studies. Y Soft is one of the companies that funds student positions at research laboratories for the winners of the competition. Over the last year, we have supported three students (winners from previous years) and agreed to fund the position for one new student (selected this year).

The competition for the “Best Theses in the field of Security and Applied Cryptography” takes place at the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University. We have supported this event and participated in the review committee since the very first competition. 



Cooperation with high schools

We also collaborate with high schools. Over the last academic year, we organized five specialized workshops in three different high schools. The workshops covered: the development of a game in the cloud, the development of mobile applications and security of Internet communications. Finally, one of the students had a summer internship at Y Soft and collaborated with one of our Security Analysts.



Lectures at universities

Our engineers and analysts share their knowledge with students and have lectured at the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, and the Faculty of Information Technology, Brno University of Technology.
 
Last year, our colleagues gave nine lectures on continuous integration, refactoring, product ownership, SOLID principles, portability of mobile applications, test-driven development, quality assurance and developer testing, Wireshark, and git.


Thank You

Thank you to everyone who participates in our ARUR program. We look forward to new students, academics, and employees joining the program!