On June 7, the Warsaw House of Technology hosted an awards ceremony for the winners of the Experimental Educational Computer Games – GEEK competition.
The competition, open to primary and secondary school students, is organised by the Polish Information Processing Society (PTI) – School Information Technology Section and the Federation of Scientific and Technical Associations (FSNT-NOT), and is held under the honorary patronage of the Ministry of National Education, Ministry of Digital Affairs, GovTech Polska and many Voivodeship Marshals.
The event, hosted by Beata Chodacka – member of the PTI Management Board, chairwoman of the School IT Section at PTI, IT teacher at the 5th Secondary School and Primary School No. 33 in Kraków, began with a short speech by Krzysztof Gawkowski, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs. In it he emphasized how important passion is in life, which allows one to realize the boldest plans. By participating in the competition, the students began their journey towards fulfilling their dreams. He also thanked their guardians who played an important role in the event, inspiring, supporting and rewarding them. He mentioned Elon Musk as an example to follow, who, thanks to his mentors, opened the door to the big world while still in primary school. Then Wiesław Paluszyński, president of PTI, spoke about the need to catch creative IT talents and recalled the idea of the Competition. – Who can create better learning programs than the students themselves? His dream is for the award-winning scripts to attract the interest of commercial companies – game producers. He added that no one can steal these ideas because they are protected by copyright.
Stefan Góralczyk, vice-president of FSNT-NOT, congratulating the winners, said: – You are very talented and have such skills that life is open to you. He said about the generational change concerning IT: – I spent three quarters of my life without a computer. I started with a copy pencil, then there was a typewriter, and I bought my first computer in 2000! That’s how life looked like, and you’re getting into it as if from the get-go. I will add here that one of the people involved in organizing the final was Malwina Wronowska, from the Section of Support for Statutory Authorities of FSNT-NOT.
| The GEEK competition is intended to stimulate and develop interests and passions among teachers and students, as its aim is to develop and present a concept or create an implementation of an educational game on the subject of inventions or inventors, with particular emphasis on the contribution of Poles to the development of science. As well as using IT competences to create interdisciplinary educational solutions; promoting programming skills; developing key competences of the future in children and young people: communication, cooperation, critical and creative thinking; increasing knowledge of Open Source licenses, Creative Commons among young people; preparing them for work in start-up environments and the ability to share knowledge. In other words, it is about supporting students’ development, encouraging them to undertake further education and work in the broadly understood ICT industry. |
–Taking part in it will enable success for all those who want to develop their passions and focus on creating computer games. We also want to use the IT skills of teachers and students to create interesting projects, and at the same time develop teamwork skills and encourage learning programming. – Beata Chodacka recommends the event.
–Interest in the competition is growing – president Wiesław Paluszyński told me. – This year, 90 works were assessed, but what’s also cool is that it has such a local character: the best works are noticed in the voivodeships, and their marshals took patronage over it, because the engineering subject – contrary to appearances – turned out to be very attractive. It is also about looking for people in your environment who are worth considering and who the local government can be proud of. The competition also builds the position of above-average teachers. We are aware that, for example, in the “implementation” category, software is written or solutions for an invented game concept are created by primary school students, not always from metropolitan centers. What generation are we growing up? The GEEK competition is not an IT Olympiad, it is a higher level of skill.
Statuettes with congratulatory diplomas were presented to the winners by Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski. As their supervisors told me, the award-winning works were their idea. From the very beginning they implemented their assumptions, thinking about what they would like to create in the future. They thought about it for a long time and then worked on it, even for half a year, they had different concepts, but the supervisor was only their advisor, he helped them, because they were the ones who ultimately made the decision. Specially prepared
The great interest in the competition is evidenced by the fact that it is the 4th time was attended by students of the Primary School named after Nicolaus Copernicus University in Łękińsk, supervised by Małgorzata Jegier, who has been conducting computer science classes there for over 25 years. – Students are very keen to take part in various competitions, including international ones. In the first edition of GEEK we took second place, in the second – second and third place, and last year. – 1st and 2nd place, mainly in the same “concept” category. I would also like to add that the School has registered the largest number of teams in all previous editions, for which it received a 3D printer from the competition sponsor Inżynierowie.com.
After the official part (the full list of winners is available at: https://sis.pti.org.pl/gala-finalu-konkursu-geek-2024/), Dr. Piotr Zakrzewski, Deputy President of the Polish Patent Office, gave a very interesting lecture, not only for students: “To patent or not? An Author’s Dilemmas”. He talked about how to protect intellectual property: when it is worth patenting inventions, how they differ from copyrights, what utility and industrial designs are, and how long they are protected. Then, in an interactive quiz (Kohoot!), 40 meeting participants – teachers and sponsors also played – tested their ability to memorize by answering 15 questions. Those who listened the most attentively and praised you the fastest were rewarded.
The Gala ended with a visit to the National Museum of Technology (organised in two groups) and a walk around the centre of Warsaw with elements of competition, prepared by Idzie.my.
JB
