According to the head of Project Management and Innovation Department, Ms. Nina Yanykina, the forum gathered a significant number of people engaged in this field – about 7,000, including the experts and people who watched the forum’s broadcast. The guests submitted various projects supported by the ASI (Agency for Strategic Innovations), and demonstrated their best practices. Many round tables and discussions were focused on educational issues.
“The forum’s most popular topic was the future of industry, science, project management, education, and new competencies. Everything was focused around the “millennials” generation, the new industrial revolution and, obviously, around the implementation of the National Technology Initiative (NTI). For the first time in many years I heard the term “technological capitalist”- sort of a “hero of the new time” whose business and wealth come from the use of “breakthrough” or “disruptive” technologies. If we want to have more of those, we should work with talented people, shape them into proactive and conscious individuals. And that is a question of higher education”, - noted Ms. Yanykina.
Ms. Natalia Lukovnikova, the head of the Center for Science and Technology Foresight, shared that during the plenary session the essential directions of geopolitical changes were discussed and how these might have an impact on the global balance of power. She’s also pointed out the lecture by Mr. Petr Schedrovitsky, a methodologist and political consultant, was very useful, in which he discussed the division of labor, giving examples of Russian practices in this field from no less than a hundred years back. Some of these experiments were so successful that they were adopted in the West. Ms. Lukovnikova strongly believes that such knowledge is of great importance for both businesspeople and government officials, as analyzing one’s past is an essential part of creating something new.
As for the exhibition component of the forum, the expert highlighted the contribution of ITMO’s partner company, Speech Technology Center, that presented identification systems they created which are currently used at the Petrovsky Stadium. This company, which also has an Affiliated Degree Chair of Speech Information Systems of ITMO University, currently supervises bioidentification and user authentication systems in the SafeNet group.
“Another part of the forum I visited was the “Hackathon NTI”. The participants solved tasks that are currently set before the NTI markets. As an expert from SafeNet, I told them about the segments we work with, as well as spoke of the role of quantum networks in this market. The participants were largely interested in what quantum technologies can bring into the network security field, and how the laws of physics can contribute to security,” - adds Ms. Lukovnikova.
Making foresight easy as child’s play.
A game on foresight developed by Maxim Ivanov, a student of the Department of Technological Management and Innovations, was a huge success. During the game, the experts had a minute to come up with ideas for particular situations, which had to do with the future, based on the existing trends. The goal of the game was to make the experts look at common things from a different perspective and think differently under the conditions of a constantly changing environment. Dozens of important topics were discussed during the game.
“It’s really rewarding – to know that the game was liked by the participants; we got positive remarks from both students and accomplished experts. They came up with many different ideas and highly appreciated the play-based concept of the foresight”, - says Ms. Ekaterina Egoshina.
New horizons and much more
According to Ms. Yanykina and Ms. Egoshina, new perspectives of ITMO’s development and competence in the fast-developing FashionNet market have become clearer during the forum. This can become the new direction for the realization of ITMO’s Art&Science cluster - hi-end technologies and automation are in demand among those who run such projects, - explains Ms. Egoshina.
“Another interesting topic was the new classification of countries by Yevgeni Kuznetsov based on the principles of their inner technological development. There were also interesting discussions concerning aiding new talents and education. I would like to point out that one of those presentations was on NTI olympiads as an alternative to the Unified State Exam. Thus, those students who aren’t good at writing texts would be able to use results from these olympiads for applying to a university. ITMO University is interested in it as well, as they can become potential students”.
The role of higher education institutions in the realization of the National Technology Initiative has also been discussed during the round table on the NTI Universities. The common opinion was that Russian universities still have to be brought up to the level which corresponds to the tasks of NTI. Amongst the general approaches to it are the development of cooperation with the industry, creation of new technological companies on the basis of the inventions done at the universities, and opening of startup accelerators and proof-of-concept centers, concludes Ms. Yanykina.
The Foresight School
The Agency for Strategic Innovations also organized a two-day foresight school within the forum. Its goal was to develop new educational programs focused on the NTI markets and new promising professions. According to Ms. Svetlana Kochkaeva, a manager for the Center for Science and Technology Foresight, the event was arranged mostly for representatives of universities; yet, it turned out that businesspeople, psychologists and school teachers also showed interest in this foresight school.
“During the whole program, the participants spent most of their time on foresight sessions and focused on perspectives in education, starting from secondary school. My colleagues and I diagnosed the occurring digitalization of all processes of social life; we also came to the understanding that there is a decrease in the role of geographic factors in education and an increase in the role of social interactions. Most participants supported the hypothesis to unify the government’s approach towards financing educational establishments. Thus, universities should expect global competition for talented students, and a decrease in support from the government. The nature of academic staff’s activity is also expected to change due to the increasing availability of MOOCs and other informational sources”, - remarks Ms. Kochkaeva.
