EdCrunch is a major forum on new educational technologies, organized by the EduPro Community for Proactive Education, the Rybakov Foundation, ITMO University, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives and the National University of Science and Technology MISiS. The forum's mission is to tell parents what their children can do now to become successful in some 20 years. Each of the forum's 52 speakers presented their ideas and recommendations aimed to make vocational guidance easier and more effective. The opening ceremony was led by Tutta Larsen [VJ and TV presenter -- Ed.], who was also one of the event's speakers.

The forum included 27 presentations by Russian and international experts, as well as a child zone where the forum's younger participants could take part in workshops and play intellectual games.

 "We believe that it's most important - how mankind and the world would develop in future; we want to do everything we can for our children to live in a world where they can freely develop and create new things. The University does everything it can for it as well. We offer education, as universities did still in the Middle Ages, yet now we use cutting-edge technologies, invite international partners, organize double degree programs and such. We involve our students in new research, give them the opportunity to search for new ideas and discoveries. We create the conditions for our students so that they can launch startups and introduce their discoveries, bring them out to the market. Yet, the most important for us is to teach them proper merits. This is why we discuss not just higher education, but school education too, as well as possible alternatives to school education. We want to understand what those children who will come to study at our universities will be like, so as to be ready to teach them," shares Nina Yanykina, Head of ITMO's Project Management and Innovation Department.