INTERNAL NEWSLETTER 2016 | ISSUE I

WORK HARD PLAY HARD

MAY 2016

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WE ARE MOVING TOA NEW LOCATION!DON’T WORRY - WE’RE NOT GOING FARWe are excited to announce that we shall be

moving to a brand new office in July 2016

offering improvements for your comfort, well-

being and working environment, and that shall

present opportunities for Questers future

activities and growth.

The new office is located by the new “Vitosha”

metro station, next to the South Park and

opposite Mall Paradise.

The relocation will not disrupt your smooth

working process and we are preparing many

pleasant surprises to celebrate the move.

QUESTERS EXHIBITING AT CEBIT 2016(HANNOVER, GERMANY)

In March we joined with other leading Bulgarian

tech-related companies to exhibit at the world’s

largest technology trade fair CeBIT in Hannover,

Germany.

As part of the national Bulgarian pavilion we

met with many interesting businesses from

across the globe to present Bulgaria as a

quality destination for software development

and Questers as a trusted technology partner.

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EVENTSFEBRUARY

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Thanks to last year's charity auction organized

by Teach for Bulgaria, on 18th February team

members enjoyed the company of the famous

Bulgarian portrait photographer Galya Yotova,

LUNCH WITH THE GEEKS

BEYOND THE KEYBOARD

PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP & WINE DAY

10 USEFUL

TESTING TOOLS

FOR OPEN SOURCE

PROJECTS

learned more about some of the best portraits

ever, got creative, had a lot of fun and made

awesome photo shoots!

On 3rd February we held a session of Lunch

with the Geeks series bringing the QA

community at Questers together to discuss

open source vs propriety. Our colleague

Peter presented on the topic of Testing toolstopic of Testing tools

for open source projeects, describing and

comparing not 10 but 500! of the most useful

testing tools for the purppose.

S

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TECH MEETUP

EMBRACING THE CLOUD AT OCADO

MARCH

The second joint Tech Meet-Up of Ocado Technology and Questers

took place on 17th March at Questers’ relaxation and entertainment

venue, qClub. “Embracing the Cloud at Ocado” focused on what the

company has done so far with AWS and the Google Cloud platform

as well as on Ocado’s future plans. The event proved to be a success

with dozens of attendees who left with excellent impressions about

the company and its innovative approach towards Cloud technologies.

CELEBRATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL

WOMEN’S DAYT

he International Women's Day

celebrated on 8th March every

year is a beautiful spring. As the

tradition goes, on this occasion all the

ladies at Questers were treated in a

special way and enjoyed extra attention.

All of them received flowers and a

special make-up event was organised

at qClub.

The ladies were introduced to the

essentials of the make-up routine

and got small gifts afterwards. The

celebration was accompanied by fine

wine and a candy buffet.

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On 24th March in partnership with the charity

Teach for Bulgaria we held a ‘pub’ quiz with

multiple rounds at qClub. We’ve had more than

50 people on site, nine teams, a Quiz Master,

intense discussions, excellent prizes, tasty

food, lots of drinks and most of all – lots of fun!

Thanks to all of the teams’ generous donations

we have managed to collect a 4-digit amount

that was doubled by Questers and would go

to support the causes of our partner charity

organisation. Congratulations to the Miracl

team who won a close contest!

CHARITY ‘PUB’ QUIZ

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We are still very excited about

the Jaga2Days workshop and

tournament we held on 14-15 April in

qClub! 12 teams were brave enough to take part

in the tournament and compete in the battle

for the 1st place. Competing wholeheartedly

in 8 matches the Bluesource team (Anton &

Dimitar) got to the final with only 1 lose. Next on

the podium, the leaders of the Winners bracket

and our silver medallists this year are Cowmen

from hell team (Nikola & Rostislav) followed

by MIRACL team (Petar & Boyan) who are the

bronze medallists.

All teams will enjoy 4 training sessions in

Jagoars foosball club – our special guests during

the Jaga2Days tournament and will practice

with the world champion Ekaterina Atanasova!

The Big Champions will have the chance to

take part in the professional tournament taking

place in Sofia this June!

2016

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LUNCH WITH THE GEEKS

DESIGN THAT MAKES YOU HAPPY

Every product conveys an emotion. Some try to connect to the funny

side of us, while others try link with a more serious side, but they

want to make us happy. The latest Lunch with the Geeks session was

held on 20th April, and was focused on web design. Our colleague

Borislav, an experienced UI designer, talked about how does design

make us happy, does funny equals happy, where do design and

happiness connect and how to add happiness to design.

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THANK YOU FOR BEING SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE!While during the last 8 years our efforts were

split between education & child healthcare,

this year we’ve decided to focus in single

direction, namely education, as concentrated

efforts have a bigger impact and we believe we

have the power to influence a positive change

and help fill in educational gaps by working

closely with governmental & non-governmental

organizations. We’re happy to let you know the

first quarter of 2016 was quite successful and

our joint efforts resulted in raising 7560 BGN -

half of the amount donated by you & half of it

doubled by us.

1000 BGN were donated in support of

the National Programme “Occupation

Programmer” – a joint project of

BASSCOM & the Bulgarian Ministry

of Education aiming at launching

IT educational centers around the

country that will result in 6000 junior

programmers entering the local IT

labour market by 2022.

400 BGN were donated in support

of Vratsa Software’s initiative Hack

Vratsa 2016 that took place on 15th –

17th April in Vratsa. Vratsa Software’s

mission is to build an IT community

in the city by providing high quality

education & creating IT jobs in the

poorest region in the country.

5000 BGN will be donated in support

of Teach for Bulgaria’s Summer

Camp 2016 – a free 3-week summer

academy for students in all grades.

The initiative’s aiming at helping

students get a better understanding

of the subjects taught at school &

motivated them to achieve more.

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Our next goal is to raise & donating 5000 BGN for

the monthly pay of two Teach for Bulgaria teachers

during the first semester of the next school year

(2016/2017). Amounts are quite symbolic, however,

still a challenge for non-profit organizations. Once

again we would like to thank you for caring about

the causes we care about and taking part in our

Questers Giving programme!

SO,WHAT’SNEXT?

HOW ARE WE USINGTHE AMOUNTS ALREADY RAISED?