Russian social media site VKontakte to establish VK University

Russian social network VKontakte has announced that it plans to establish VK University, an educational subdivision of the company.

VK University will encompass all of VKontakte’s educational projects and will include a new series of classroom-based sessions aimed at would-be programmers.

“The target audience for the project is high-school students and students at specialised universities. The classes will be held in St Petersburg, but the company plans to put all lecture notes online. Most of the lectures and masterclasses will be led by developers from the social network,” reads a statement by VKontakte.

The first major project to take place within the framework of VK University will be a three-month course on programming for the iOS operating platform. The company has stated that in the future it will likely run a series of lectures on working with the Android mobile operating system.

“Our project will be an excellent opportunity to gain new knowledge and skills for those who see a classical university education as inadequate,” said Valery Petrov, the curator of the project.

The classes will be free of charge, but the number of participants will be limited.

Source: Lenta and Tass (in Russian)