What? Where? When? games have been held at ITMO for three years already, organized under the license from the game show and following its official 1989 rules. At the games, employees from any ITMO department can meet new people, communicate informally, and improve their teamwork, as answering the questions on one’s own can be difficult. Half of the teams have maintained their initial lineup three years on, and more and more people are joining the qualification rounds every year.

This year, teams from Sberbank joined ITMO’s games for the first time. The popular intellectual game became a great opportunity to switch off from routine tasks and communicate in an informal manner.

“Doing many different things from various fields helps broaden your perspective and keep your mind flexible. Such events offer an opportunity to prove yourself and show off your knowledge, experience new emotions and, naturally, meet new people. It’s of great significance that this marked the first What? Where? When? games at Sberbank’s TechnoHub. Many thanks to the organizers for such a great exchange of experience!” notes Mikhail Sukach, the IT-leader of one of TechnoHub’s biggest teams.

The finals of the games’ spring series took place at Sberbank’s technological hub at the reconstructed Kalinin Plant in Vasileostrovsky district. This site was chosen for a reason: many of ITMO’s students, graduates, and lecturers work here, and Sberbank and ITMO often hold joint events at its premises.

“I’ve participated in What? Where? When? games at ITMO since they launched, and before that, I had participated in student games at all major sites in St. Petersburg. Sberbank’s TechnoHub is vast and comfortable, and it’s cool that I had the opportunity to visit it. Despite having worked at ITMO for a long time, I get to meet new faces at every game, and this time, I also got the opportunity to talk to Sberbank’s employees during the breaks between rounds. I think such a collaboration is a great idea!” notes Nikita Prigodich, an associate professor at ITMO’s Center of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Sberbank is one of ITMO’s key industrial partners. In collaboration with the university, the company creates unique products, for example a digital assistant for chemists and Russia’s first AI training tool for exchanging private data from several sources. ITMO and Sberbank also implement joint educational programs for Bachelor’s and Master’s students and encourage talented young people and school students by organizing specific tracks of the I am a Professional competition and the National Technology Olympiad.