The Sberbank coworking space offers much scope for ITMO students and employees: it features open zones, conference rooms for one, six, and eight people, spots for individual work, and a lounge seating area with chairs. With its modular furniture pieces and Sberbank’s smart home, the space can be quickly transformed for hosting lectures, hackathons, and workshops.

“Sberbank is making another attraction point – a technological, flexible, and open environment for communication and informal work. This is where the boldest and most groundbreaking solutions are born. Here, students can study, meet like-minded people, and simply relax. We view such projects as an investment in the most valuable assets – people, their competencies, and potential. We want ITMO graduates to not only make life-changing discoveries but also know that they can bring those innovations to life at Sberbank,” shares Dmitry Sukhoverkhov, a chairman of Sberbank’s North-West Bank. 

The space’s presentation was combined with a series of activities for ITMO students and employees. Natalia Leonova, the Project Director of Sberbank's Research and Development Center in St. Petersburg, talked about essential skills for career success. She ran a workshop titled IT Isn’t Just Code. How Creativity and Soft Skills Break Down Barriers, in which she shared key qualities for future IT professionals in the format of an interactive conversation. Students could also discuss their career paths with recruiters and draw inspiration at creative workshops and a small concert. 

“ITMO and Sberbank share grand-scale, significant projects in virtually all areas of the university’s life. These are joint educational programs, research projects, and initiatives on engaging and working with talents – both among students and staff. The opening of a new space marks a new stage of our partnership, now infrastructure-wise, too. At the new location, students and young researchers will be able to work, grow, and collaborate. All this ultimately will strengthen our partnership with Sberbank and help us become better,” notes Kirill Aleksandrov, the first deputy chairman of ITMO’s Admissions Office and the head of ITMO’s Strategic Communications Department.

Since 2019, ITMO and Sberbank have launched several joint Master’s programs, including Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, Digital Urban Studies, and Artificial Intelligence and Behavioral Economics. Last year, ITMO and Yandex opened AI360: ML Native – a Bachelor’s program for aspiring AI architects.