March 31 through April 1, 2018 a traditional Offsite School on Priorities of Information Technologies 2018 was held at Nauka Recreation Camp. The school was organized at the initiative of the Department of Information Technology in Economics and Engineering Center for Corporate Information Systems of the School of Economics and Management.
Not only students of information and communication specialities gathered at this meeting, but also economists and managers who are studying at other departments of the School of Economics and Management. Moreover, the event welcomed the 2018 graduates from South Ural State Humanitarian Pedagogical University (CSPU), and Chelyabinsk Branch of Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, who were interested in the Master’s Degree academic programs of the School of Economics and Management. The total number of participants was over 70 people.
The school’s theme and the opportunity of informal communication excited interest of the Chelyabinsk Region Administration, public organizations, and actual business enterprises. The school was attended by Igor Fetisov, First Deputy Minister for Information Technologies and Communications of the Chelyabinsk Region; Pavel Grebnev, Director of Infinniti Solution company; employee of this company Elena Morozova; representative of IIDF (Internet Initiatives Development Fund) Aleksandr Strunkin; Y-Combinator consultant and co-founder of Deako.com company (Seattle, USA) Timur Mukhamendzyanov; Director of Business Incubator of IT Park Pavel Umanets; representative of Vryemya Che public organization Vsevolod Ganin; Assistant Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Information Policy of the Chelyabinsk Region Legislative Assembly Sergey Buyakov. Napoleon IT company represented by its Director Pavel Podkorytov, and CHELENERGY Energy Service Company represented by its Director Vladimir Brevnov rendered their support in organization and holding of the event.
Day One
In his speech the First Deputy Minister for Information Technologies and Communications of the Chelyabinsk Region Igor Fetisov told the future IT-specialists about the activities of the Ministry and invited them to take part in fulfillment of the authority’s projects. For instance, he suggested working on optimization of administrative procedures based on which the government renders services for the citizens, so that the processes of service providing could be automated; performing inventory of the existing communication circuits under Clear Skies project (it is planned to remove the communication cables from posts and lay them underground). Moreover, students were offered to participate in preparing and organizing events for the Ministry, to organize works on searching for innovative projects across the Chelyabinsk Region, to try themselves as analysts by helping make the Register of IT companies of the Chelyabinsk Region, and to test variants of using Big Data to fulfill environmental tasks.
Along with the Deputy Minister’s speech a mini-pitch was held, where Business Information students presented their innovation projects to Elena Morozova (IIDF) and Aleksandr Strunkin (Y-Combinator). In the course of a heated discussion students received a competent consultation on promotion of their projects and an invitation to take part in Harvest on April 6, 7, 8 of 2018.
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At the main venue students talked with Pavel Grebnev and the representatives of Infinity Solution company. Actual business showed the tasks that it is currently solving in the field of medicine and initiative social projects of the company where students can prove themselves. These, for instance, include solutions in the field of Mobile B2C of GroupWare class to support joint work of natural groups, Park ID — smart parking, control of parked cars and voter control; Moscow Class — a system of interaction of parents while their children study in secondary school. After a vivid presentation by Karina Belyalutdinova students confessed that now they know what they need to learn for successful professional career that awaits them in the future.
Day Two
Day two of the offsite school was started by Pavel Umanets from Vryemya Che public organization. The main focus of efforts for 2018 is the creation of an Ecological Path in Chelyabinsk pine forest to reduce recreational load of the latter. This Path will be conveniently located for SUSU students, it will run not far from the university, and will begin at the monument to I.V. Kurchatov and end in Monakhi natural landmark. The total length of the Path will be 2.5 km. Pavel invited everyone to participate in creation of comprehensive information envelope of the Ecological Path, free Wi-Fi zone, CCTV monitoring, creation of augmented reality applications. During the presentation and live communication students offered many ideas and suggestions on using information technologies for this project.
Timur Mukhamendzyanov, Director of Business Incubator of Chelyabinsk IT Park, continued the meeting and shared main achievements of this private organization. Venture business is high-risk business where out of ten startup projects only one survives, that is why a private IT Park is something very rare in Russia. Our IT Park in Chelyabinsk proved its competence this January and became a regional operator of Skolkovo. Now the innovators of South Ural need not set off on long trips to Moscow in order to promote their projects. Most of the Skolkovo services are now available here.
The Academic Secretary of the Department of Information Technology in Economics of the School of Economics and Management Elena Gornykh and Director of Engineering Center for Corporate Information Systems Vadim Kosterin provided the meeting’s participants with the details on Master’s academic programs on Applied Computer Science and Business Informatics.
Mikhail Sysalov, a Business Information graduate closed our informal meeting sharing his impressions on and peculiarities of organization of joint IT business with Chinese enterprises.
Such meetings facilitate students’ deeper understanding of the interests and possibilities of the government and business authorities in the field of information and communication technologies, understanding of the necessity to improve their competences by enrolling into Master’s programs, and already now, while still studying, participating in fulfillment of actual projects. The offsite school becomes a start of fruitful collaboration with the organizations that were represented by our guests and that rendered us their support.