Ukrainian online educational platform Prometheus is opening a Harvard CS50 (Computer Science 50) course both online and offline in April. It has been translated into Ukrainian for the platform.
CS50 is
Harvard University’s introductory course on intellectual
enterprises of computer science and the art of programming. It has a
free online twin known as CS50x on the U.S. platform Edx. CS50 was Harvard’s largest course in terms of
enrolled students in Fall 2015. It was also adopted by Yale in 2015.
The
Prometheus-translated course has already beaten the all-time registration
record of the platform. It reached 50,000 registrations before the start of the
course.
Ivan
Prymachenko, co-founder of Prometheus, thinks course is so popular because it
is free, high-quality, in Ukrainian and by the overall growing demand in
programming education. “Ukrainians are very interested in studying and
self-development”, he told the Kyiv Post on March 24 in a Skype call.
Prometheus
has also introduced the supporting offline groups all over Ukraine for the
first time. CS50 is known for its heavy workload, not usual for introductory
courses. “It is a truly interesting but serious and complicated course. It
gives more knowledge than you can usually get from online or even from some offline
courses. Mentors will guide the offline groups, helping the students to
understand their weekly assignments.”
Prometheus’ logo represents values of the platform.
For
50,000 wannabe online students there are only up to 450 places in offline
groups to fill. However, the online course is fully sustainable and can be
passed without the additional help.
The
number of registered students has exceeded founders’ expectations with nothing
but “organic advertising and news stories in media,” Prymachenko said.
Being a
non-profit organization, Prometheus has never paid for advertising until
recently. One of the donators directly asked to use his $150 for platform’s
promotion on Facebook. However,
the founders spent only $15 when they reached their registration peak of 50,000
for CS50.
Founded
in 2014, Prometheus now has 31 courses and 200,000 registered users, 42,000 of
which have finished their courses and got a certificate.
Iryna Savchuk can be reached at [email protected]. The Kyiv
Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by Ciklum, Steltec Capital, 1World Online and
SoftServe. The content is independent of the donors.
