The award supports projects that aim to raise awareness about generative AI among a wider audience. Its jury includes AI developers from top Russian companies. Among the award’s key criteria are the technological maturity of a project, its economic potential and scaling prospects. For educational initiatives – these are also knowledge depth and relevance, the use of innovative methods, content quality, and feedback from students.
Dmitrii Botov, AI Talent Hub’s co-founder and head, was also named Ambassador of Generative AI Change for his contribution to AI education. One of the other shortlist nominees was Pavel Podkorytov, AI Talent Hub’s co-founder and CEO of Napoleon IT.
“One of our cornerstones is support and peer reviews from our business partners and expert community. These are people who actively leverage cutting-edge generative AI technologies in their processes and therefore form new standards in their fields. In our turn, we, at AI Talent Hub, strive to set the path for innovative educational solutions in the field of AI,” notes Dmitrii Botov, the head of AI Talent Hub, an associate professor at ITMO’s Institute of Applied Computer Science, and a data science partner at Napoleon IT.
Dmitrii Botov. Photo courtesy of the subject
The Master’s program by AI Talent Hub trains sought-after AI specialists – ML engineers, data engineers, data analysts, and AI product developers. The program is delivered online and relies on real-world business cases. Each student is free to build their own individual learning track by picking up courses by top IT experts. Jointly with its partners, AI Talent Hub also runs workshops, hackathons, as well as project and case seminars for students.
One example is AI Product Hack; the hackathon has recently won the open call for projects within the strategic goal “Graduates for Technological Leadership” as part of ITMO’s 2030 Development Strategy.
The awards ceremony took place at Conversations 2025 – a conference on generative and speech AI for entrepreneurs and developers – in St. Petersburg.
