BRIDGE’s key goal is to facilitate the growth of small companies via a system of competencies and innovative brokerage. The organizers aspire to develop the businesses of small and medium enterprises, come up with environmental projects, and improve the regions’ accessibility by introducing robust communication networks and transportation systems. The project is conducted as part of the Kolarctic cross-border cooperation program.

The students will get an opportunity to collaborate on relevant cases for the region’s real companies.The first session will take place on March 16-22, 2019, in Tornio, Finland, and focus on helping local businesses that work in such fields as tourism, advertising, shipping, etc.

“For example, one of these companies, Tervolan Kuriaura Oy, works in food production. Much as other local businesses, they’ve offered us a case to develop. The students will be split into international teams and offered to come up with original solutions and present them to the company’s representatives,” explains Aleksander Khudyakov from ITMO Institute of Entrepreneurship.

The admission for the trip is already over. According to Aleksander, the main prerequisites for participating in BRIDGE are one’s motivation to grow, get new experience and work with companies on an international level. With regard to the current session’s specifics, most of the participants were selected from students of the Faculty of Technological Management and Innovations and the Faculty of Photonics.

ITMO students will work together with their peers from Norway and Finland. Among the universities that participate in BRIDGE are the University of Tromsø, Murmansk Arctic State University, Petrozavodsk State University, Lapland University of Applied Sciences. ITMO University was the one to launch the project, prepare the necessary documents and find funding. Igor Kuprienko, the head of ITMO University’s Center for Project Development and Fundraising, along with his colleagues Anastasia Tokareva and Aleksandra Fedeneva will act as the project’s coordinators.

What’s more, ITMO is the only St. Petersburg university that will receive students from other participating organizations. The exact dates of the following sessions are yet to be known. Supposedly, Finnish students will come to the First Non-classical in 2020.

For now, BRIDGE organizers advise the students to follow the updates on new admissions for the program’s educational trips.