The country's main business event, the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, will welcome talented teenagers to SPIEF Junior, a special youth section. The general idea of the event is to integrate the younger generation into the global socio-economic agenda and provide an opportunity to model an image of the future.
On 30 May Moscow hosted a press conference dedicated to the SPIEF Junior Programme on the platform of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum with the participation of Russian Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov. During the conference its organizers, partners, and future participants spoke about the features of the event, its main objectives, and expected results.
“Holding the Junior section within SPIEF is becoming a good tradition. Today it is especially important, because in conditions of constantly changing reality it is necessary to demonstrate new opportunities to the younger generation. We very much hope for feedback from the kids, because everything we do for the development of the education system, we do for them, for their future,” said Minister of Education Sergey Kravtsov.
For the second time the initiative to hold a Junior Track on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum has been taken by the Content Foundation. The organization will hold the event as part of the Point Junior project, which helps talented schoolchildren to implement projects, assemble a team of like-minded people, and build their future. This year more than 150 teenagers from Russia and other countries will take part in SPIEF Junior, and the business programme will combine questions of future competencies and career paths, sustainable development and resource saving, youth entrepreneurship, and building the economy of the future.
“For several years we mentored and accompanied schoolchildren as they implemented their projects. We brought kids' ideas to specific sponsors and employers, including within SPIEF, and created lifts for talented kids. But there is a lot of talent. That is why we decided, using our experience of spot work with hundreds and thousands of schoolchildren, to transform our Junior Point project. Together with universities we will help kids build a trajectory from their classrooms to the status of a young specialist or scientist,” Elena Sokolova, Director of the Content Foundation, told a press conference.
The transformation process will be implemented by the Content Foundation with the support of the Expert Centre for Career and Fulfilment of Professional Opportunities for Youth under the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and the Facultetus platform. The main tasks of the changes will be to increase the value of higher education, to popularize the industries and professions important for the country, to build effective communication processes between the university and the school. Through various activities and project activities with universities, young talents will be able to realize their professional potential, which stems from school.
“The renewed project will start with the agricultural universities and universities of the Far East, since the agroindustry and development of the Far East are among the most important areas of the country's economy and domestic policy at the moment. It sounds ambitious, but I'm sure that in a year or two agriculture will start to attract many high-scoring students from IT, and the Far East will start to outperform other regions in attracting specialized graduates,” said Sergey Vyshchipanov, General Director of Facultetus.
SPIEF Junior is supported by the Roscongress Foundation and the Innopraktika Non-State Development Institute, as well as the Russian Schoolchildren Movement and the All-Russian competition Bolshaya Peremena, which have been actively involved in the selection of proactive teenagers.
“For the development of both society and economy, in addition to technological issues Russia must resolve a number of social and educational problems. In the age of high speeds, cooperation and collaboration of all generations united by common values is imperative. Generation Z is the first "digital" generation, for them there is no world without high technology. It is this generation that will replace today's professionals. I hope that SPIEF Junior will become a space of choice for the generation of the future, where it is possible not only to gain knowledge, but also to take an active and constructive part in modeling possible social and economic transformations,” said Natalia Popova, First Deputy General Director of the Innopraktika Non-State Development Institute.
SPIEF.Junior will take place 15–18 June 2022 in St. Petersburg. The partners of SPIEF Junior are DOM.RF Bank, Promsvyazbank, Russian Railways, Norilsk Nickel, Rosneft, Novatek, SOGAZ, 1C, Russian Environmental Operator, Yappy Social Network, and AgroGard-Finance.
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