IT COFFEE BREAK

Fall has just begun, and for many of us, it means 'back-to-school.' Today we continue our "Ask the Expert" series with digital parenting tips from psychologist Dániel Tóth. If you missed our first digital parenting story with Dániel, be sure to check it out here and let's dive into a new lesson on digital parenting together!

· (00:00) – Intro, ‘This or that’ game

· (02:00) – What can parents do to ensure a good school year’s start?

· (05:00) – How to set up family tech boundaries?

· (09:45) – What are the worst tech habits and how can we break them?

· (10:20) – How to stop phubbing?

· (12:15) – Dark side of using gadgets in digital parenting

· (15:35) – Do you need to check kid’s chats?

· (16:25) – What is a family digital device contract and how can we use it?

· (20:15) – Social media registration dilemma: to forbid or not?

· (22:45) – How does the family social media account work?

· (23:20) – How to use family chats effectively?

· (24:45) – How can we gamify our family time with the help of tech?

· (27:15) – How can we minimize the ‘zoom fatigue’?

· (28:15) – How to organize digital detox?

· (31:15) – How to shift from FOMO to JOMO as a family?

· (34:45) – A piece of advice from digital kids to parents

· (36:00) – Main takeaways and Outro

"I see a lot of positive changes and we should be very proud of that." – Zoltan Szeni, Vice president and Head of People in Europe and the Middle East, shares his insights of his 5 year-journey with EPAM.

Zoltan Szeni has many years of international work experience, a client-serving mindset, and a business background. We sat down with Zoltan to hear about his five-year journey at EPAM, last year's obstacles and opportunities, and the future of EPAM! Happy listening!

· (00:00) – Intro

· (00:45) – Zoltan’s 5 year-journey with EPAM: what has changed?

· (01:30) – Consequences and lessons learned from the pandemic

· (07:25) – Cultural changes at EPAM: new social and professional communities

· (10:30) – Knowledge-sharing during the pandemic at EPAM

· (12:30) – Remote working at EPAM and social side of WFH

· (14:40) – Virtual team-building and fun events at EPAM during the pandemic

· (17:30) – EPAM’s next goals as a company

· (21:53) – Outro

"At EPAM we set the bar extremely high when it comes to software engineering." – Zoltan Szeni, Vice President, Head of People, Europe and the Middle East, talks about EPAM-ers and his role at EPAM

Zoltan Szeni has more than 20 years of business experience in consultancy, change management, HR, and organizational development. Now, Zoltan is combining his knowledge in his current role as Vice President and Head of People in Europe and the Middle East. We challenged Zoltan with questions about his broad experience and how this has influenced his role at EPAM. Surprisingly, we learned that EPAM and team sports have a lot in common. Keep listening to learn more!

· (00:00) – Intro, ‘This or that' game

· (02:15) – How EPAM & EPAMers differ from the others

· (04:20) – EPAM’s culture

· (07:00) – The concept of the bench in context of EPAM

· (10:10) – The opportunities 'on the bench'

· (12:00) – What do the coach in sports and Vice President at EPAM have in common?

· (16:00) – Zoltan’s insights on working with the German and Dutch colleagues

· (19:00) – Zoltan’s experience of working and living in Russia

· (22:20) – Diversity & success at EPAM

· (24:30) – Outro

Oleksandr Tsykunov, Senior Software Engineer at EPAM, has been relocated to Prague and has been with EPAM Czech Republic for 2.5 years now. We spoke with Alex to learn the details about family relocation and life in Prague. Keep listening to learn more! 

· (00:00) – Intro, ‘This or that’ game and Alex’s Backstory

· (02:00) – Why the Czech Republic?

· (02:55) – Relocation to the Czech Republic

· (04:05) – First impressions in Prague

· (06:00) – Challenges of relocation: how to adapt fast in Prague?

· (06:50) – Schooling in Prague

· (09:00) – The Czech language

· (10:20) – Leisure time in the Czech Republic, Alex’s favorite places

· (11:45) – Pros of living in Prague

· (13:45) – What it’s like working at EPAM Czech Republic?

· (16:30) – Living and working in Prague during the pandemic

· (18:15) – Activities for kids in Prague

· (19:15) – Alex’s advice and experience in Prague

· (25:30) – Outro

In this episode of the IT Coffee Break Podcast, we celebrate Plastic Free July and discuss Corporate Social Responsibility programs with Shamilka Samarasinha, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at EPAM. We discussed education programs, environment initiatives and Social innovations as EPAM’s response to COVID-19. Tune in and Happy listening with @epam_czechrepublic!

· (00:00) – Intro, ‘This or that’ game

· (02:20) – Overview of the CSR journey at EPAM

· (07:15) – Internal and external CSR programs at EPAM

· (08:25) – eKids program

· (10:37) – Education programs at EPAM

· (14:05) – Environment initiatives at EPAM

· (18:30) – Social innovations as EPAM’s response to COVID-19

· (21:10) – ESG (Environmental, social and governance) framework at EPAM

· (23:10) – Why EPAMers volunteer?

· (25:05) – CSR drivers and volunteers at EPAM

· (28:15) – Outro

The 21st of May is the United Nations World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. This year at EPAM, we celebrated with a cultural festival and a cultural awareness week.

We sat down and talked about cultural diversity at EPAM with one of the festival's organizers and speakers, Krystsina Katouskaya. She shared how to be effective in a multicultural business environment, what steps can help us adapt to a new culture, and her hands-on experience and advice for relocation.

Timestamps:

· (00:00) – Intro, ‘This or that’ game

· (03:00) – Cross cultural basis and business communication

· (04:35) – Challenges of the cross-cultural business communications

· (05:45) – Cross-cultural paradigms

· (07:30) – Ways to improve cross-cultural communication within the remote team

· (09:05) – What helps in adaption to a new culture after relocation?

· (15:20) – Common mistakes in multicultural communication

· (16:45) – Kristina’s personal experience of relocation to Europe

· (19:30) – 6 steps of adaptation to a new culture

· (22:20) – Building cross-cultural team

· (23:45) – Giving and receiving feedback in cross-cultural business communications

· (25:15) – EPAM’s business culture: how to adjust fast if you are a newcomer

· (26:45) – Celebrating cultural diversity at EPAM: cultural awareness week

· (28:00) – Outro 

At EPAM Czech Republic, we are thrilled to be long-term partners with the non-profit organization Czechitas. Together we inspire and empower new talents. Since 2017, as part of our Corporate Social Responsibility program; specifically the education pillar, our EPAMers have been helping Czechitas by consulting, sponsoring educational events and providing the help of our mentors and volunteers.

We have talked with Barbora Buhnova—a co-founding and Governing Board Member of Czechitas—about informal STEM education, and diversity and inclusion in tech. Let's learn more!

Even 25 years after its initial release, Java is still one of the most used development languages worldwide, ranked number 3 by TIOBE index this year. Becoming a Java Developer has proven to be an excellent career move for Martin Sladek, a Senior Software Engineer at EPAM. Martin has more than 13 years of programming experience and specializes in the financial services domain. He is always learning new technologies and stacks, but still prefers coding in Java. Today Martin shares his experience with us!

In the world full of devices and data, coding has become the new Latin and a must-skill. That is why EPAM has a world-wide eKids program for children where kids can start coding and discovering the digital world from the early school-age. As parents, how can we support creative learning and digital literacy? How should we be smart about kid's screen time? How can we become a better digital parent whilst preserving a good parent-children relationship in the long-run? Today we put theory into practice and discuss digital parenting with Dániel Tóth!

Dániel is a psychologist, Youtuber, and a gamer. He coaches parents and kids on technology, helping to resolve conflicts on screen time, video games and social media.

(00:00) – Intro, ‘This or that’ game

2021 is a big year as we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Agile Manifesto. Today we reflect on Agile working and living with our expert Tomas Zenkl, Senior Agile Coach at EPAM in the Czech Republic.

Tomas has a tremendous amount of passion and level of Agile knowledge: more than five years of Agile coaching experience and lots of training and certificates under his belt.

What does Agile mean in the context of EPAM? How can we make remote Agile more effective? How can you take a more Agile during uncertain times? We challenged Tomas with these questions, so let’s learn from him about the Agile landscape and design thinking!