ITMO and IT Lyceum to Promote AI Education in St. Petersburg

On September 1, the IT Lyceum opened in St. Petersburg. This is the city’s first IT-focused educational institution for students in grades 1-8. The lyceum’s concept and training programs for its teachers were developed by ITMO. Today, the partners have many plans, including joint events. 

The first major event this academic year was ITMO Day, when the students got to know the university and the research it does in IT, physics, chemistry, and robotics. Younger students enjoyed a science show and science quests, while older students attended interactive lectures on entrepreneurship and AI by the university’s educators. Alexey Itin, the head of ITMO’s Admissions Office, talked about the development of IT and how school students can try their hand at it with help of ITMO’s summer and winter schools.

In the lyceum’s modern classrooms, students got to see all kinds of robots developed at the university, including a manipulator and a walking robot, and even control a wheeled robot. Moreover, students learned about unmanned vehicles and participated in a quadcopter demonstration show.

Throughout the event, students and teachers could take pictures at the ITMO photo zone and explore the university on a VR tour.

ITMO Day is a part of the two institutions' long-term partnership plan. The lyceum’s roadmap is currently being developed. For instance, AI will be part of the school’s curriculum: the teachers are already taking professional development courses on AI in education. Students will be able to join the university’s events and competitions, as well as gain access to career counselling. 

“Our lyceum has been ‘friends’ with ITMO since its foundation: the university helped us design the educational space and offered professional development courses to our teachers. Thanks to events like ITMO Day, we’ll be able to introduce our students to the university’s atmosphere and research, show them real-life experiments and inventions, and help them choose their careers. I can speak from experience that such career events are important: I used to study physics at a well-known St. Petersburg university, but I realized it wasn’t for me and got into ITMO to study IT instead,” shares Dmitry Serzhenko, the head of the IT Lyceum.

The plans for further exchange of knowledge and experience between the lyceum and ITMO were described in a collaboration agreement. Among the joint initiatives are educational programs in AI for natural sciences, a robotics championship, and a course on project activities for teachers and students.