This was the first time that representatives from ITMO University participated in the event as part of the "Study in Russia" exhibition booth which was arranged this year. The best universities which are participating in Project 5−100 were represented at this booth, one of the largest at APAIE.
Irina Kim, Head of Center for Asian Cooperation at ITMO University, believes that, despite the fact that APAIE is smaller than the European EAIE or American NAFSA conferences, it turned out to be a very effective space for establishing scientific and educational contacts.
"In particular, I managed to find potential partners among Taiwanese universities for submitting joint applications for the Russian-Taiwanese competition announced by the Russian Science Foundation (RSF). We were able to discuss the most popular and viable forms of academic cooperation with our partner universities from Asia. As it turned out, our internationalization approaches are very similar. This similarity encourages us to look for new and attractive formats for student and scientific exchange programs, summer schools and workshops".
"We bring back with us fresh ideas, a signed partnership agreement for student exchange with a French university, and a contract with the University of India, through which we are planning an Academic exchange for faculty and also programs for students", explains Ms. Kim. "Face-to-face meetings with partner universities gave new momentum to the already existing partnerships. I was pleased to be able to talk with our colleagues from South Korea and Hong Kong."
In 2018, the APAIE conference and exhibition will be held in Singapore where ITMO University hopes to meet two partner universities, the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Peter Sloot, one of the active members of ITMO’s International Council is also a Professor at NTU.
"These are very progressive universities. It’s excellent that due to these partnerships, our students and faculty have an opportunity to study in Singapore, and can see with their own eyes scientists and researchers from the most advanced university in the world in action," explains Maria Didkovskaia, Head of the Internationalization Department at ITMO University. "While discussing our interim results of ITMO university and National University of Singapore’s collaboration, Professor Anne Pakir acknowledged the motivation and drive of ITMO students who are currently studying in Singapore."
Ivan Samborskiy, Arseniy Pendryak, Denis Mekhanikov and Kseniya Buraya are currently doing an internship at the Laboratory for Media Search of the School of Computing at the National University of Singapore. They study information technology and work with Big Data.
