ITMO's collaboration with the «ElTechSpb» company started with signing of an agreement during the St. Petersburg Innovation Forum in 2013. One of the most essential projects in this collaboration was launching of the Engineering Center for Fiber Optics in Mordovia, where the «Fiber Optics And Optoelectronics» institution was also formed. This June, the institution (amongst its founders was «Technopark Mordovia») was included into the register of Russia's industrial clusters. One of the cluster's recent tasks is attracting talented youth and getting qualified personnel in IT, photonics, fiber optics, optoelectronics and nanotechnology.
ITMO University specializes in both IT and Photonics, so its only natural that the cluster employed its help. The future professionals will be trained from schoolers that study at the Republican Lyceum for Talented Children. This Lyceum was opened only three years ago and is already amongst Russia's leading educational establishments. In the top-500 of best schools in Russia, it's placed 6th. Children who've become winners of different contests in physics, chemistry, math, etc. study at the lyceum. The Lyceum’s administration wants to give its students advanced skills in programming and IT as well, — that’s where the Alma Mater of Russia's leading programmers comes in. ITMO's staff will prepare the schoolers for contests and entrance exams at Russia's best universities, including their own.
According to a member of the Computer Technology Department, curator of the Distance Education School Daria Yakovleva, ITMO contributes a lot to the development of educational contests in Russia and is ready to support regional initiatives. Thus, ITMO's representatives — Daria Yakovleva and Pavel Mavrin, two-times World Champion in Programming, have already met the schoolers they are to teach. They've conducted a introductory testing and their future students have done well.
«We'll be dealing with really talented children, — shares Daria Yakovleva. — As of now, we are working on a new educational platform that would be used for better distant interaction between students and ITMO's lecturers. The idea is the following: ITMO's lecturer will conduct lessons via Skype or send the necessary materials by e-mail. Each week, there will be a two-hour lecture: the first half will be dedicated to analyzing the homework, the second — to solving new tasks».
The agreement also implies conducting training camps and meetings. Once or twice a year, the lecturers will go to Saransk to give an intensive course. According to Daria Yakovleva, several more regions of Russia are interested in this kind of cooperation, as well.
The main goal of these agreements is training qualified personnel for the region that is now one of Russia's important centers for fiber optics and optoelectronics, — comments Vladlena Serebryakova, Rector's Advisor for Cooperation with High-Technology Organizations. — They need good specialists that will contribute to the development of these fields in Mordovia. So, the government does everything to attract them — they offer good conditions for work and living, and interact with potential specialists since their high school. Our university also welcomes applicants from the Republican Lyceum for Talented Children — this year, 8 of them joined us.
