Whoever is part of Split’s tech community is already familiar with the DUMP Association of Young Programmers and its work. Be it through their various projects, tech and charitable collaborations with Split Tech City, or by attending DUMP Days – we know who they are and what they do. However, we did want to showcase the Association’s work to the international audience, so we had a chat with dumpovci (loosely translated as “the DUMP’s people”) about DUMP, the work they do, and some plans they have for the future.

At the moment, DUMP is made up of 23 members of the Association who actively work on achieving its most important goals: “The most important goals of the Association’s work are to share the knowledge gained through our work on numerous projects with other technology enthusiasts and to organize various events to connect the local community. We want to become synonymous with education, knowledge, and quality work in the world of digital technology while connecting all parts of the community.”

To achieve their goals, DUMP’s members are always actively working on something, be it offline or online projects, so we were curious what exactly are they up to at this moment: “We are currently running the DUMP Internship, a program through which we train interns to work on the association’s projects once they become members by holding lectures and workshops every weekend.

We are also recording educational videos and interviews for our YouTube channel and preparing for the DUMP Days conference.

We have recently completed the organization of an educational cycle “Basics of web programming” and a mini-football IT tournament that we organize for the companies we work with.”

With so many projects aimed at connecting and educating the local community, DUMP’s work was made slightly difficult with the current situation. However, staying true to their drive and determination to share the love for what they do, they have found a way to surpass this obstacle: “It is true that in the last two years, the biggest obstacle for us has been the pandemic because DUMP’s work requires the organization of public events where we educate young people and offer networking opportunities.

We have adapted and now everything we do is available online.

This allows us to share our knowledge even beyond the boundaries of our local community.”

In the work they do, the DUMP team collaborates closely with some local institutions, associations, and companies: “One of the institutions we work with the most is, of course, FESB, which has provided us with space to work and other forms of support. We also closely collaborate with the Student Union, as well as associations such as Split Tech City and a large number of local tech companies that support DUMP Days, DUMP Internship, and participate in our football tournament for techies.”

With so many great projects and lectures, we thought they might have a favorite one, something they are the proudest of:

“We are proud of every project we have ever worked on and we dedicate ourselves to each one to the maximum.

Of course, the most important project is the DUMP Internship because it allows us to keep the association working through the training of new generations of DUMP members. At this point, we would like to especially highlight the content we publish on the DUMP YouTube channel because it is something we have just started with, and we expect a lot from this project!”

When it comes to the motivation and drive for the continuation of their work, the DUMP team stressed the importance of community: “We are very motivated when we see that our work inspires others and encourages them to learn, especially young people who are just entering the IT world.

The high attendance of our events and the support of the community we get from year to year give us the wind in our backs that is needed to continue organizing everything we do and to challenge us to start some new projects.”

One last question we had for the DUMP team was to please explain how the Association’s name came to be: “We are often asked this particular question! Well, to explain – DUMP was founded by developers, and UMP was not exactly striking and easy to pronounce, so they remembered the recursion and added a D to the beginning of the name.

This is how DUMP came to be!

Although we were only developers back then, in the past ten years, for each of our projects to be done as well as we wanted it to be done, we needed three additional skill set areas. These are design, marketing, and multimedia. Now we all collaborate together on all DUMP’s projects.”

And there you have it – the story about the DUMP Association of Young Programmers! We wish them continued success in their work and may they keep on spreading the love and knowledge for programming and other things tech.

We invite you all to follow them on social media to keep an eye on their work – especially the sixth edition of DUMP Days coming up in May 2022, as well as other DUMP lectures about programming, design, marketing, multimedia, and other areas related to technology!

Photos by: DUMP Association of Young Programmers