DES-2025 Winter IT School Held at LNU
Lviv University completed the sixth season of the DES-2025 winter IT school with a competition of innovative student projects.
On 19 February 2025, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv hosted the final award ceremony for the sixth season of the DES-2025 winter IT school. The event concluded an educational season that brought together students, mentors, lecturers, university representatives and partners from the IT industry.
DES-2025 received around 1,400 applications from participants representing more than 100 educational institutions, including institutions outside Ukraine. This geography showed that the school has grown beyond a local education format and has become a visible platform for young people interested in programming, digital products and innovative technologies.
Participants and project competition winners were addressed by representatives of LNU and partner organisations, including SoftServe, GlobalLogic, Sigma Software, Lviv IT Cluster and others. The speakers focused on the practical value of the school: participants did not only attend lectures, but also tested their ideas through teamwork, solution design and project presentations.
The project competition featured around twenty innovative ideas. The top results went to “Poruch” and “Ближні”, two socially focused solutions for volunteer coordination and support for vulnerable groups. Second-place projects included “The Witch”, “Знай”, “ABC Journey”, “Click&Go” and “EduBot”, while third place was shared by teams working on education, employment, financial literacy, health, cybersecurity and social-support tools.
DES-2025 was organised by the Centre for Marketing and Development of Lviv University and the Artificial Intelligence Technology Laboratory in cooperation with the project authors and university departments. Partner support was provided by N-iX, GlobalLogic, SoftServe, Headway, NeuroForge, EveryMatrix, Intellias, Avenga, Miratech, Profisea, Tietoevry, ELEKS, Kindgeek, StayInno, DevsX, Sigma Software University, Microsoft, Opera Software, EPAM, Nexla, Indeema, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Cucollaborate, Netherlands Business Academy and Leobit.
Information partners included Lviv IT Cluster and DOU. The school was also supported by Lviv City Council, Lviv Regional Military Administration, the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.
DES-2025 confirmed that the winter IT school format works as a bridge between university education, industry and student teams. For participants, it was not only a lecture programme, but also an environment for professional contacts, practice, teamwork and the creation of early technology products.
This material is based on the Lviv University publication: original LNU news item.