For Konstantin Baltsat, this is far from his first competition. He had already become a laureate of a scholarship program from Tinkoff (one of Russia's biggest commercial banks — Ed.), a finalist of the Big Challenges contest, and a winner of the Russian national contest Your Turn. As a result, Konstantin made over a million rubles in prize money and gained valuable experience.
“I saw Alfa-Bank’s contest as a great opportunity to jumpstart my career. This program offers funding, access to a community of like-minded individuals, and, potentially, the opportunity to work with some of the company’s top executives,” shared Konstantin Baltsat, a third-year student of the Faculty of Infocommunication Technologies. “I plan to use my money to launch a startup that will utilize machine learning technologies to analyze the physiological data of its users. The goal is to prevent burnout and loss of productivity while helping users to focus and maintain life-work balance when working remotely.”
Konstantin Baltsat. Credit: Sirius University’s press office
The Alfa-Chance scholarship contest is a program by Alfa-Bank that aims to support promising students of Russian universities. The program was first launched in 1995, with the number of participants reaching 1,115 students from 50 cities by 2022. This year, there were 2,160 applicants from a hundred Russian cities, including Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Samara, Tyumen, Ulyanovsk, Ufa, and Barnaul. In 2014, 2015, 2018, 2022, and 2023, ITMO students were among the winners of the competition.
The contest is open to third- and fourth-year full-time Bachelor’s students. The contest is partnered with 13 universities, including ITMO, with students from partner universities able to compete for an additional grant.
In order to participate, students need to fill in the online application form via the program’s website. They should also provide the following documents:
- a letter of motivation describing themselves, their experiences and achievements, as well as how they plan to use the grant money;
- scanned copies or photographs of diplomas, certificates, awards, or volunteering records;
- a scanned copy of their grade book;
- links to published articles or conference proceedings.
This year, the expert committee awarded prizes to 30 students, with each receiving a grant of 300,000 rubles. The prize money can be used to either acquire hardware, finance a project, or complete an internship. Alfa-Bank also offered the best students an opportunity to complete a paid internship at the company.
