From Shkolla Digjitale, toward big dreams

Elbion Redenica and Melos Kuqi, both 18 years old, are the founders of the company 'Slash'. They shared with us their motivational stories and their beginnings as successful programmers from the age of 12 through the programming course at Shkolla Digjitale.

When asked about the impact of Shkolla Digjitale on his career, Elbioni replied: "I am currently a student at 'Minevera University' in San Francisco, a university ranked first in the world for innovation. I started programming at the age of 12, when I won a scholarship to complete the four basic levels of programming at Shkolla Digjitale, at the 'Hour of Code' education fair. Initially, I had no experience with programming and was not at all familiar with this field. Programming is generally something related to logic, to the real world, and I firmly say that Shkolla Digjitale has had a fundamental impact, where I personally took my first steps as a programmer, and I have applied the knowledge I gained to the challenges I face today as a software developer." Some of Elbioni's successes during his career as a programmer "I will start with the founding of the company 'Slash', a company that offers various software services as well as other marketing services. Among many projects, I would single out a very important project, which was the 'Connecting the World Behind Boundaries' project, for which I was inspired by a student with hearing problems in my elementary school. This application was built to play the role of a translator from spoken to written language and vice versa, to help communication in this regard. Another achievement of mine is also participating in 'ICT Awards 2021' as a finalist with the application 'Kqyr e dil' developed during the pandemic, as well as participating in the Balkan competition 'Tech Stars Startup Weekend Balkan 2021', where we won the main prize," Elbioni highlighted among others. Elbioni's advice to his peers "Even though I started programming at the age of 12, I think students can start even earlier. Programming is one of the best opportunities to help solve real problems in the world, so I call on everyone to start learning programming because there are many problems in the world that can be solved with a simple software, programming connects many people's goals to create a common solution."

On the other hand, Melos Kuqi told us about the impact of the programming course on his achievements: "I got my first programming knowledge at Shkolla Digjitale, so I believe it was the first push and starting point in my career development. Last year, I opened the software development company 'Slash' together with Elbioni, and since the beginning of this year we have been working on an 'NFT Project' in the Blockchain space, which is expected to launch soon." Some of Melos's successes during his career as a programmer "The biggest success has been opening the company, but without setting aside successes like winning many awards in regional competitions with startups, where I was a founder. Also, in collaboration with Shkolla Digjitale, I was the winner of the Hackathon programming competition held at KosICT. Projects with Shkolla Digjitale are countless, but I want to highlight my involvement in a project in the Blockchain space for creating a digital wallet for a crypto project, where a considerable number of students participated," added Melosi. Melos's advice to his peers "I advise all children and my peers to manage their time spent online well, to use it to the maximum for their own good, to learn new things and to get as skilled as possible because lost time never returns". Photo credits: Innovation Centre Kosovo (ICK)