The award ceremony for medalists and runner-ups of the “I am a Professional” competition was held on March 14 in Moscow at the youth forum “Russia - a country of opportunities”. The countrywide competition “I am a Professional” is the first event of its kind in Russia and was conducted jointly by representatives of business, industry and universities. The competition is organized by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and the public organization Business Russia in collaboration with Russia’s ten leading higher education establishments. ITMO University curates three of the competition’s tracks: Computer Science, Information Security and Photonics. Tech company Yandex acts as the competition’s technical partner.
Rectors and Vice Rectors of leading universities around Russia, as well as representatives of partner companies presented the awards to the winners. ITMO University’s First Vice Rector, Daria Kozlova, also presented medals to 20 winners.
"Today we talked a lot about competition, about how this ceremony brings together the best leaders, those who will determine the future. But I would also like to point out that it is very important to dream. To set new ambitious goals and objectives. You are on your way to a big dream today, and I hope that it comes true," said Daria Kozlova.
President Vladimir Putin also met with a few of the winners of the competition who shared with him about their research projects.
As part of the competition, ITMO University was also the venue for the “It’s Your Call” winter school, which was attended by 135 students. They were able to attend lectures and workshops by leading experts from ITMO, Yandex , Kaspersky Lab, Sberbank and other organizations, guided tours to specialized laboratories and companies, Semi-Hackathon, Chess Pong and other activities.
The final results of the competition were announced at a special press conference last month. Medals were awarded to 248 people, and seven participants received two medals; 2,030 other participants were declared runner-ups. All gold medalists will be awarded cash prizes: bachelor students will receive 200 thousand rubles, and Master’s students – 300. In total, gold medals were awarded to 53 people.
12 students from ITMO University became medalists and winners of the competition within the three tracks that are supervised by ITMO University. One of the gold medalists, Vladislav Koval, who participated in the Photonics Track, says that he decided to take part in the competition in order to check his knowledge. “I wasn’t expecting to get a high result, so I didn’t prepare much – I just looked through some practice tests.” Regarding his future he says:
“On the one hand, it would be interesting to work in science, but on the other hand, I’d like to work in a large high-tech company. Maybe the best situation would be to enrol in a PhD and work on a large scientific project.”
