As stated in the decree, the best mentors in the fields of industry and agriculture, transport, engineering and techniques as well as state and municipal employees, teachers, professors and other workers of educational institutions, doctors, cultural workers and artists can receive an award of "For Mentoring". To be eligible for the award one has to be successfully working as a mentor for no less than five years.
Anatoly Shalyto has been teaching at ITMO University since 1998. During this time, a powerful school of training the world's best programmers, according to ACM ICPC (ITMO University is the only seven-time champion of this contest in the world), was established at the Computer Technology Department and the Department of Programming Technologies. It was thanks to the work of Anatoly Shalyto and his colleagues that the university raised up the developers of the world's first 4G communicator (Yota by Scartel) software, the programming language Kotlin (the second official programming language for Android applications) and cryptocurrency Cardan’s software. Thanks to the scientific school, ITMO University ranked 56th in the Times Higher Education ranking in the field of "Computer Science" in 2016 and 76th in 2017.
Professor Shalyto, however, considers his initiative to keep the most talented students within the university after their graduation his best achievement. The mentor spoke publicly about it in 2008 in an article he published. Now at ITMO University, the Departments headed by Anatoly Shalyto and Vladimir Parfenov employ young and talented specialists, including world champions in programming, who stay at ITMO U instead of working abroad.
“We have a multi-level team: our rector, Vladimir Vasilyev, acts as an inspiring and encouraging force, Vladimir Parfenov is a world-class professor, Andrey Stankevich is a great coach of our teams and I am their mentor. I create the atmosphere of success at the Department, I motivate our students, postgraduates and researchers to be on fire, to achieve success, I keep my finger on the pulse all the time. I also follow the work of our Computer Technologies International Laboratory. In addition, I encourage our students to become responsible citizens and conscious members of society. And of course, it is necessary that our students are in demand here at our department at ITMO University, and we need to constantly prove to them they are”, says Anatoly Shalyto.
Prof. Shalyto is known for his book “Notes on Motivation” (link in Russian), where he shares his thoughts and stories about why we should and actually need to constantly move forward. In his article for ITMO.NEWS, he also notes that two conditions are necessary to keep the talents in the country: a decent salary and freedom of creativity. In the article he also describes the first National forum "Mentor", which led to establishing an award "For Mentoring". The main part of the forum took place in mid-February in Moscow, but regional forums were later held in many other cities in Russia. Within the framework of the event, the winners of the "For Mentoring" competition in various fields (industry, education, etc.) were announced. There were also many roundtables and meetings with regional officials. According to Prof. Shalyto, more than 15,000 people attended the event, which demonstrates that both the government and society understand the need to restore the institution of mentoring in Russia.
Thus, from 1981 to 1995 there was a state award "Honorary mentor of the youth of the RSFSR". It was given by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic. Highly qualified workers, collective farmers, engineers and technicians, agricultural specialists and employees who had worked impeccably for at least ten years in one organization and were educating young people for at least five of them could receive this award.
“The revival of the “For Mentoring” award is an important sign of support for people who dedicate their lives to educating young people. The number of forum participants is proof that it is necessary to increase the prestige of mentoring. The point is not to encourage the best mentors to broadcast their experience, because such experience cannot be multiplied. No way. Because some people have it and some just don’t. How one acquires the skill of mentoring, the talent, if you want, I myself do not know. But it is important to encourage people in what they are doing, because mentoring is like art: one cannot teach it to you, but you can learn”, notes Anatoly Shalyto.
Prof. Shalyto is the winner of the 2008 state prize in the field of education for scientific, practical and methodological development of the “Innovative system for the search and training of highly qualified specialists in the field of software production on the basis of project and competitive approaches” for educational institutions of higher professional education.
The “For Mentoring” award also honoured Nikolay Varukhin, head of the Novgorod Young Sailors’ Club, and Gennady Kotelnikov, rector of Samara State Medical University, this year.
The news of the award also went to TASS and other domestic media.
Translated by Pavel Vorobyev
