AI Brainstorming and Techno Rave: Notes from Techno Quest by ITMO and Yandex

One has to always be learning to be a good AI specialist – both ITMO and Yandex stand by this motto. And that’s exactly what ITMO students did at the recent techno quest Future Gets Coded Here at the ITMO x Yandex space. Instead of ordinary tasks, students were invited to attend five stations and pump their skills in one of the topics: foodtech, traveling industry, medicine, transport, media services, and education. They teamed up to work out their audience and selling points, recruit developers, and brainstorm a name, a logo, and a signature style for their product – all with the help of Yandex’s neural network Alice AI. 

“I try to go to every Yandex event at ITMO that I can – I love how they are organized and what I can learn there. At the latest AI hackathon, I picked up a new approach that helped me make my algorithms more accurate. This time, I enjoyed learning more about product development. I used to have a loose grasp on how to get started in the field, but the event’s experts walked me through the process and explained how to create a product. I think it’ll be helpful if I ever want to launch a startup and present it at ITMO Accelerator,” says Evelina Miftakhova, a Master’s student at ITMO’s Faculty of Secure Information Technologies.

Students pitched their ideas to the company’s experts, who evaluated their content, originality, and presentation and gave feedback on how to make them better. If a team stood out with their teamwork, creativity, or pitch, they received special tokens, which they could then exchange for craft mocktails at the bar. Among other souvenirs for participants were water bottles, phone bags, and silver tote bags by Yandex Education and Yandex Museum.

“My friend and I pitched an idea for a platform for Gen Alpha; it relies on predictive algorithms to foreshadow users’ interests and offer them an infinite feed of photos, videos, audio, texts, and infographics. A Yandex expert praised our project and asked us some questions, but we mostly talked about working at the company and employment pitfalls. I relate to Yandex’s corporate culture and products, and I’d like to work there some day; so, this was a good experience for me,” notes Daniil Solovyev, a third-year Bachelor’s student at ITMO’s Faculty of Technological Management and Innovations.

Among those who tried to come up with a traveling-themed project for Yandex was also ITMO NEWS journalist Eduard Biryuchevskiy and his team. Also in attendance was blogger Nowkie, whose thick glasses, a vintage Zenit photo camera, and a denim fishing vest still made him recognizable. He came to ITMO to talk to students and learn what it's like to study in St. Petersburg.

“I study computer technologies – and my program is considered to be the most difficult one at ITMO. Usually we miss out on all cool events because we are constantly busy studying, but during my first semester, I managed to visit a Toxi$ concert for first-year students and now, met blogger Ilya Nowkie here. I still don’t believe it! I’ll brag that I was in Ilya’s video for the rest of my life,” says Egor Artemov, a first-year Bachelor’s student at ITMO’s Information Technologies and Programming Faculty.