Team of HSE University and UNN Students Wins Hackathon to Create IT Centre
A joint team of students from HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod and Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod (UNN) won the main prize of the Smart Campus student hackathon and a certificate for 25 million roubles to create an inter-university IT centre. The award was presented by Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko.
By order of the President of the Russian Federation, 25 world-class campuses are to be built in Russia by 2030, the deputy prime minister said. ‘There have been two waves of selection already. I congratulate Nizhny Novgorod, where the very interesting Neimark campus project will be implemented. This campus will become a platform for training personnel in the field of IT. We decided to engage students in the development of new digital models, since it is you who can create an IT educational environment for future campuses—the very ecosystem that will allow them to function effectively,’ Dmitry Chernyshenko emphasised. The results of this hackathon will be reflected in the content of the campuses and make it possible to design a research environment, he added.
Over two days, approximately 150 students from 17 regions developed prototypes of digital solutions related to the activities of IT campuses. The winning team, which included students from HSE University in Nizhny Novgorod, received a certificate for 25 million roubles to create a laboratory and inter-university student digital centre, as well as a special prize: a trip to the international multisport tournament ‘Games of the Future’, which will be held in 2024 in Kazan.
The students participating in the hackathon worked in teams of 3–5 people on ideas for developing ‘smart campus’ services in the categories of education, science and technology, student environment, sports, the university's third mission, art, management and the ESG agenda, data management, and digital accessibility.
‘A hackathon is a special kind of event,’ said Natalya Aseeva, Dean of the Faculty of Informatics, Mathematics and Computer Science at HSE University-Nizhny Novgorod. ‘The format involves a short timeframe in which participants need to come up with a unique idea, implement an application prototype, and present this idea in such a way that experts, the jury, and other participants get excited about it. I am glad that our joint team has succeeded.’
Gleb Nikitin
The hackathon was held under the auspices of the Nizhny Novgorod Neimark campus, which is aimed at the development of IT education. Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of Russia Andrey Omelchuk and Nizhny Novgorod Region Governor Gleb Nikitin joined the event. ‘The Neimark IT campus has already become a driver for working with the entire ecosystem of the IT community, from future applicants and their parents to partners, inventors, and market leaders. It is great that the project to create campuses has become a cause for joint creativity from the most talented students from 17 regions of the country. I am sure that the hackathon will be the beginning of a great friendship and synergy of campuses across the country. And the best IT solutions will form the basis of the digital architecture of future campuses,’ concluded Gleb Nikitin.