Graduates of South Ural State University are in demand in various fields. Specialists of one of the most popular areas today, IT, can be employed not only in business companies, but also in the public sector.
Aleksandr Griazev, the First Deputy Minister of Finance of the Chelyabinsk Region, says how to get into the public sector.
"We see how much IT is in demand in the public sector. What once had to be done by hand, spending a lot of time and effort, is now done with the help of computers. And some tasks cannot be solved without digital transformation at all," Aleksandr Griazev notes. "We are interested in students having the opportunity to understand that IT specialists are needed in our field as well."
As an example, Aleksandr Griazev spoke about Maksim Sorokin, one of the specialists of the Department of Information Systems. He said that while taking an internship at the ministry, Maksim was involved in working on several promising tasks that required quick immersion and quick results. And he showed himself very well, subsequently becoming a valuable asset.
On the example of Maksim, it becomes clear that this is an interesting and necessary job, where there are plenty of opportunities to realize one's potential.
"In 2015, I entered the Computer Science and Computer Engineering programme at the SUSU School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science," says Maksim Sorokin. "There I learned a lot from excellent teachers, including Professor Vladimir Shiriaev. Since then, I have come a long way, solving a lot of problems: I worked for myself, in a telecommunications company, where I was engaged in the integration of communications, developed complex technologies. At some point I realized that creating such projects alone requires a huge amount of resources. Even then I began to think about the public sector, about the fact that the government has such resources and that is where my knowledge and skills will come in handy. I decided to enter the Master’s programme at the SUSU School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science in the direction of State and Municipal Management."
The first priority for the then student was work in the public sector. Therefore, during his studies, he began to find out in which state organizations and institutions he could take an internship. The first was the regional Ministry of Finance.
"It was necessary to develop a web service for the website of the Ministry of Finance, something like a service desk for receiving and analyzing applications for technical support," Maksim shares his memories. "Of course, I did it. I made a simple version, but, nevertheless, I saw how I could grow professionally there, what a friendly team was, and how charging the atmosphere was. I took my second internship in the regional Legislative Assembly. But it was the first one that grabbed me so much that I came to the state administration. And I did not regret it. Here I got what I expected: development, professional growth. I was sent from the ministry to study at Innopolis. They also supported my participation in the Leaders of Russia competition, where I successfully passed the remote stage and now I am preparing for the next tests. I develop projects, I can express myself. It is important that people listen to me when I propose solutions."
Now the young programmer is working on several projects as part of the digital transformation of the Ministry of Finance. One of them is in the field of public procurement, where the latest technologies related to neural networks and artificial intelligence are used.
"The project is related to the analysis of natural language in documents by comparing data using a specific algorithm. Employees of the Ministry of Finance have the task of verifying public procurement documents of regional institutions. And now they do it manually, although the process itself can be automated, simplifying the process of verification. For example, data analysis based on neural networks can be applied," the specialist explains. "It is necessary that the software does not only compare the digital data of two files, but also determines whether the texts are the same in meaning, that is, understands the meaning of the phrases. For example, artificial intelligence must understand that "Minfin" and "Ministry of Finance" are one and the same thing, and not a mistake. Neural networks can provide such an opportunity. In addition, documents can be both printed and written by hand, and then the program must be able to recognize handwriting.
Aleksandr Griazev, in turn, emphasizes that the project has a specific applied value, important for the entire financial management system.
"The state allocates funds for public procurement. And we, as a financial authority, have the task of checking regional purchases for their financial support, so that customers do not go beyond the funds allocated to them. To do this, the specialists check the bidding documentation at all stages of the procurement procedures, manually comparing the data in the documents, which takes a lot of time and effort. There are a lot of budget organizations in the Chelyabinsk Region, respectively, the amount of work is great, and the number of employees is limited. Now we are solving this problem at the local level, within the Ministry of Finance. But we assume that, if successful, our experience can be more widely disseminated and applied in other regions. In general, it is customary for financiers to share experience and adopt best practices. We looked, something similar already exists in one of the regions, but we intend to work on the topic in more depth," says Aleksandr Griazev.
"If there are ideas, the Ministry of Finance listens out for it. It is interesting to work, each time a new task is set," adds Maksim Sorokin. "When I was a student, it was also valuable for me that the university provided an opportunity to develop professional qualities and embody creative ideas."
"For young professionals who do not yet have work experience, their ability to learn and a set of basic knowledge are very important," emphasizes Aleksandr Griazev. "Among my favourite questions to yesterday’s students is what was the topic of the graduation project, how was the work on it, where did they look for information and relevant data, how did they get practical experience, and most importantly, what conclusions did they draw? If a person was able to formulate these conclusions on the basis of experience and material studied, it means that he was immersed in the educational process and interested in the result, and, most likely, he will treat his work just as responsibly."
Maksim is just one of those people. We did not have any vacancies in his field of professional expertise immediately after the internship, but when the vacancy appeared, we invited him to take part in the competition and take the position.
"SUSU students have a lot of opportunities. With my supervisor, Head of the Department of Economic Theory, Regional Economics, and State and Municipal Management of the School of Economics and Management, Professor Valentina Antoniuk, we patented a work on the topic of socio-economic development of single-industry towns. This is what I wrote my thesis about. The main thing in study and in work is the will and desire to learn. Offer your ideas, do not be afraid of innovations, and you will definitely be noticed," Maksim Sorokin advises.