IT festival KODE Waves in Svetlogorsk
There are two weeks of long-awaited May holidays ahead and we know where you should go on May 10: to the KODE Waves IT festival in the Kaliningrad region. We learned from program director Alexey Gladkov why it’s worth coming to it.
What is the goal of the KODE Waves IT festival?
The Kaliningrad region is gradually turning into an IT hub along with Innopolis or Skolkovo. Large IT companies are opening branches here, the government is launching support programs, and universities are training young specialists. We decided to gather the entire IT community of the region, invite top speakers from the largest IT companies, exchange experiences, discuss the future and opportunities for business and career development.
For example, we will talk about the IT park – a new space in Kaliningrad where IT specialists will be able to live in an ecosystem of convenient technological services and develop digital projects. It will contain residential buildings, educational, engineering and business centers, sites for meetups and hackathons. The park’s goal is to attract startups, IT companies, young professionals and investors, including through tax incentives.
How is KODE Waves different from other festivals and conferences?
Firstly, KODE Waves takes place in Svetlogorsk near Kaliningrad, in the beautiful futuristic location “Yantar Hall” on the shores of the Baltic Sea. Kaliningrad is a city that everyone needs to visit, so if I were you, I would definitely fly there and combine business with pleasure.
Secondly, we chose the most pressing topic – future technologies. We live in a time of rapid change, and today the main questions of humanity are: what awaits us in the near future and what to focus on when planning our lives. When applied to IT, everyone wants to know what the landscape of the field will be like and which technologies should be given more attention. Speakers will answer these questions and talk about IoT, web3.0, cross-platform and Apple Vision Pro.
Thirdly, we do not want to overload the listeners and will create a relaxed atmosphere on the site for hanging out and casual communication. Our speakers will also be open to communication.
By what logic did you select the speakers?
Our goal was to create a powerful and interesting program. Therefore, we have selected well-known speakers with extensive speaking experience and a visionary character who look to the future and set trends in their field:
Alexander Ivanov, KODE: “Integration of a game engine into a mobile application.”
Kirill Rozov, Tinkoff: “Development of a universal work messenger. Why did you choose Kotlin Multiplatform and Compose?
Gennady Evstratov, Yandex: “Evolution of Flutter.”
Alexey Gladkov, Mobile Developer: “Write like a multiplatform. Mistakes of platform developers.”
Alexey Ramashka, Alfa-Bank (Belarus): “AI transformation in the code review process.”
Sergey Spirenkov, VK: “Web3 to the masses. Why large social networks and old newspapers began to use distributed ledger technologies.”
Alexey Plaksin, KODE: “IoT solutions: risks and benefits for humans.”
Ilya Proskuryakov, Effective: “Game development for Apple Vision Pro: exploring the capabilities of the headset.”
Andrey Kuznetsov, Sber AI: “The evolution of LLM models: trends in the development of multimodal models.”
Sergey Ryzhikov, Bitrix: “The GPT phenomenon. The rules of competition have changed.”
How do you plan to keep your audience's attention throughout the day?
We have exciting topics you won't hear anywhere else, a stellar line-up of charismatic speakers and scheduled breaks, because those who are well rested concentrate well)
In fact, we have no goal of forcing festival participants into the audience. If someone gets caught up in an enthusiastic conversation in the hallway, we will be happy to have your networking, even if you miss the report. At the very least, you will find someone to ask what he was talking about. Come, communicate with each other, exchange experiences and have fun!
How will networking of participants be organized?
We want everyone to communicate as much as possible – we are having a festival, not a conference. Firstly, there will be mechanics for networking and discussion of reports in a relaxed atmosphere. Secondly, the site will have interactive stands of IT companies with AR/VR, AI and other entertainment. For example, “Velogorod.Online” will bring a bicycle racing simulator, where participants will be able to complete the route in the UAE. Thirdly, there will be an evening after-party.
How can a listener choose a section – Hard or Soft?
Initially, we wanted to hold a festival for specialists in my main profile – mobile development. Then we realized that we wanted to invite other roles that take part in the creation of applications – for example, team leads, project and product leaders, QA engineers, analysts and UX-UI designers. This is how the “Software” section appeared with reports that were interesting for all participants, regardless of specialization.
It’s easy to choose: if you are involved in mobile development or are interested in mobile applications, look at the topics of reports in the “Hard” section and come to them. If some topics from the “Hard” section do not interest you because you do not work with the technology covered by the report, come to the “Soft” section: there will be reports on future technologies like GPT chat or neural networks.
Why did you make 350 seats?
This is our first time hosting KODE Waves, so we are focusing on quality rather than quantity. This time, not everyone who applied will be able to attend the festival. We will try to make a mix of experienced specialists and newcomers so that everyone gets the maximum benefit from the program and networking.
Please don't be upset if you don't make it to the festival this year – next year we will make it even better, and you will be the first to receive a letter announcing your registration.
How do I know whether I will get to the festival or not?
To everyone who filled out the form on the site codewaves.ruwe send a letter within a week with a ticket or a message that you are on the waiting list and, if there are still free seats, you will receive a ticket after the end of registration – May 2.
Register on the site codewaves.ru and come!
