The new joint coworking space by ITMO and T-Education is a place for creativity, studies, and leisure. The space follows the same design philosophy as T-Bank’s own offices: there are sections of workspaces for groups and individuals, sound-proofed conference rooms, a second floor, and a spacious lecture hall. Students can come here after class to discuss projects and ideas, tune into online classes, or focus on their work. The space accommodates more than 250 persons and has a total area of 600 square meters.

“We see a great benefit in creating this kind of shared space for students of different disciplines. This kind of collaboration results in unique ideas and projects. Here, individuals with different competencies and expertise can make connections in the most natural manner. This is also a meeting space for ITMO students who are already interning or working at T-Bank. To them, it’ll be a place that bridges their academic and professional lives,” shares Maria Shvedova, an educational projects coordinator at T-Education.

For the opening of the space, T-Bank prepared a lively program for the guests. Students took part in a vibe-coding quest, tested their IT knowledge in a quiz, and came up with ideas for startups. The most active participants received merch from the company.

In the lecture hall, experts from T-Bank spent the day sharing their career experience. How did a racecar and taxi driver become the IT director for one of Russia’s top banks? How do you make changes in studies, work, and life? Which soft skills do systems analysts require? Answers to these and other questions came from open discussions between the participants. In the future, the lecture hall will provide a starting point for students becoming acquainted with real-life corporate environments. Here, they’ll take part in regular classes as well as workshops from T-Bank.

“The task for ITMO is to train individuals who, while still students, can grow from junior to confident middle-plus specialists and enter the job market with tangible experience. In partnership with major tech companies, we create infrastructure in which students can work on real industrial cases while studying. It’s also important to create the conditions and atmosphere that closely resemble what their future jobs will be like. This new coworking space we’ve created with T-Bank is one example of such a collaboration and another opportunity to help students grow and realize their potential from their first days at ITMO,” says Kirill Aleksandrov, the head of ITMO's Strategic Communications Department.

Another feature of the opening day were the individual HR consultations. Here, students got to learn all about employment and internships at T-Bank: the different interview stages, the ways to improve one’s CV, and what employers take note of during interviews.

Together with the coworking, a free shuttle service has been launched from ITMO to T-Bank’s St. Petersburg headquarters. There are two scheduled buses each workday: first at 1:30 PM from ITMO’s Kronverksky 49 building, and then a return ride at 3:00 PM. Many ITMO students and staff already work at T-Bank, and the demand for such a service came from within; now, planning one’s day has become even easier.