Alexey Komissarov on "CASE-IN" and "Russia – the land of Opportunities" projects

Alexey Komissarov: you don't have to be an excellent student to participate in our projects.

About how a student can become a millionaire, about financial literacy lessons at school and about contests for the online portal "The Future of Russia. National projects," said Alexey Komissarov, Director General of ANO Russia - the Land of Opportunities.

The winners of the Leaders of Russia, the most famous competition of the presidential platform "Russia - the land of Opportunities", which has been held in the country for three years, receive positions in ministries, large state corporations and even become heads of regions: in total, 180 of the best participants in the history of the competition have occupied important managerial positions. Leaders of Russia is the flagship of the platform, but at the same time it is only one of 25 projects aimed at developing young people in various fields and directions: from information technology and engineering to entrepreneurship and culture. As part of the federal project "Social Elevators for Everyone" of the national project "Education", contests are being implemented on the platform for both students and school-age children.

On Children's Day in an interview with the portal "The Future of Russia. National Projects" Alexey Komissarov, Director General of ANO Russia - the Land of Opportunities, told how you can earn your first million with your mind in the tenth grade and why you don't have to be an excellent student to participate in competitions.

- Alexey Gennadievich, 25 projects and contests have already been collected on the Russia - Land of Opportunities platform, designed mainly for a young but adult audience. Which projects are specifically aimed at participating schoolchildren under the age of 18?

- Of our 25 projects, the audience of 15 is fully represented by university and college students. The largest are the student multidisciplinary Olympiad "I am a professional" and the youth management cup. "Manage!", the creative festival "Russian Student Spring", the project "Professional Training 2.0", the Russian national award "Student of the Year", our new project "Career Time".

At the same time, we have quite a lot of projects that are either made for schoolchildren, or schoolchildren are involved in them in one way or another. For example, the international competition "My first business", the competition "RDS - territory of self-government", the Olympiad of the circle movement "NTI.Junior", our new All-Russian competition "Big Change" - all these are projects launched specifically for school students.

But there are also contests for young people under the age of 35, in which schoolchildren can also participate.

There is a special school league for children in grades 6-11 in the CASE-IN International Engineering Championship. There is also a separate track for schoolchildren in the Digital Breakthrough information technology competition, and anyone over the age of eight can participate in the Volunteer of Russia competition. Schoolchildren over the age of 14 can also participate in the Abilimpix championship for people with disabilities.

- What gives the guys the opportunity to participate in your contests?

- First of all, it is an additional education, an opportunity to learn about competencies in demand on the labor market, to better prepare for final exams and for admission to universities and colleges. This is a reserve for the future.

Already at a young age, it is important and necessary to accumulate knowledge, collect and replenish your portfolio. Somewhere, in order to realize your idea, you need additional resources - not only monetary, but also educational.

In the "Volunteer of Russia" the guys can win a grant for the development of their project. In the "My First Business" competition, in addition to tablets, laptops, and smartphones, which the winners receive, the children are given the opportunity to take business intensive courses, where mentors help in the implementation of their own business projects. Another prize for the winners is discounts on admission to universities in different cities of the country at the special faculty of business "Kapitany".

In the school league "CASE-IN" the winners and prize-winners of the finals receive from one to ten additional USE points upon admission to 19 partner universities. Younger participants are encouraged by educational trips and trips to thematic shifts in the best children's camps in the country.

And in the same "Big Change", which we launched quite recently, the main prize for the tenth-graders is 1 million rubles, which can be spent on certain purposes, primarily on education. In my opinion, this is quite a serious incentive. Eighth and ninth graders can also apply for cash prizes - 200 thousand rubles each for additional education.

- Aren't you afraid that your future winners will stop going to school after such wins?

If a student realizes that science is closer and more interesting to him, he will take the relevant subjects more seriously. And the second point: life shows that the more active a person is, the more involved they are in various activities, the more successful they are. That's why it doesn't bother the guys who participate in our projects, but rather helps them in their studies.

- If financial literacy lessons are included in the school curriculum, then the participants of the My First Business project will have a great advantage. How do you feel about the fact that entrepreneurship lessons can be included in the school curriculum? How important is this knowledge for a modern student?

- I've been an entrepreneur for most of my life, all my friends are entrepreneurs, so I can't have any other attitude here: I'm in favor of entrepreneurship developing in every possible way. I have been saying for many years that entrepreneurship should be taught to children not even in school, but, no matter how funny it may sound, in kindergarten. After all, the sooner we give children the opportunity to make decisions not according to standard patterns, but including a creative approach, the more benefits we will receive in the future.

I am far from thinking that all children should become entrepreneurs, but the skills that could be acquired in such lessons could be useful in any profession in the future.: Whether it's working for a large company, journalism, medicine, or government service, an entrepreneurial view of things generally helps.

That's why I'm in favor of having such lessons in schools. I don't know if it should be a compulsory subject, rather no than yes, but as an elective, definitely. And we are already doing such work on the basis of our community of winners of the Leaders of Russia contest - The Elbrus Club.

Oleg Demidenko, the winner of the Leaders of Russia competition, became the author of the Financial Literacy project, in which he and other Leaders of Russia conduct a series of financial literacy lessons for schoolchildren in an interactive and entertaining format. Our "Leaders" tell teenagers about the formation of cash flow, investments in the future, credit dependence, personal savings and future life trajectories with the help of finance. In real time, they discuss modern smartphone apps for personal budget accounting, watch game videos on financial literacy, and design a budget together.

The main goal of the project is to instill in schoolchildren an interest in financial literacy, so that later children can independently study this topic.

- Regarding the "Big Change", we debated for a long time, discussed how to make the prize educational, but not demotivate the guys.: so that it doesn't happen that a student wins a million and stops trying to go to university on a budget, because he has money for paid tuition. To prevent this from happening, we have provided that those who study well and eventually go to the budget have the opportunity to use this million for some other purposes, including setting up their own business or a mortgage.

In fact, it seems to me that the greatest value for schoolchildren from participating in such projects is not so much the material component, which is also important, but rather the opportunity to find themselves: to understand which direction is interesting and most promising for them. The fact is that without trying yourself in different fields, it is difficult to understand what is really close to you and what you can succeed in. Therefore, all our projects are aimed at helping the participant to self-actualize in the first place, and in this sense, of course, our competitions are an addition to the school, not its replacement or contradiction.

- What role do grades play in the selection process for participation in competitions, and do they play at all? If you make a portrait of an average participant, does it have to be an excellent student?

- There is no such portrait, and probably there cannot be. All our contests are very different, each has its own audience, direction and specifics. Therefore, the participants in these projects are completely different.

But in each of the projects, we make such cross-sections and conduct analytics. You don't have to be an excellent student to participate in our contests. I would even put it another way: in some of our projects, school knowledge can help, and in some it doesn't matter at all.

The same "Big change": the assignments do not check the mastery of the school curriculum. With the help of this contest, we want to evaluate completely different points. The general erudition of schoolchildren is one of them. Erudition is a broad knowledge, not just a school curriculum. Therefore, even those guys who for some reason do not get the highest grades in individual subjects can achieve excellent results in the "Big Break"..

There are contests, for example, "Volunteer of Russia", which are not about knowledge at all, but about how big and kind your heart is and how ready you are to give your time, soul and warmth to other people, to help them.

Or the "My first Business" contest, which is attended not by those who get the best grades in school, but maybe just by those who are looking for a completely different path - who are cramped only within the school and who want to come up with something of their own. That's why our projects are open to everyone. Studying well is important and necessary, but you don't have to be an excellent student to participate in our projects.

- Are you not planning to launch new projects for children of school age or maybe even preschool age?

- The new All-Russian competition "Big Change" has just become a project for schoolchildren, which has a very wide range of directions.

We are not planning to do a special project for preschoolers yet, but our digital platform is developing. Its main task is for anyone to try their hand, take career guidance tests, participate in our various competitions and choose the most interesting areas for themselves. Maybe we'll get to preschoolers someday, but for now it's mostly schoolchildren and students.

- By the way, how old is the youngest participant of your contests?

- In the competition of author's projects "My country is my Russia" Milana Kornishina reached the stage of project protection this season, she is 10 years old. In August, when the project will have to be presented to the jury, she will be 11.

And we have the lowest age limit in the Volunteer of Russia contest: children from eight years old and older can participate there. This year, for example, 12 schoolchildren aged eight and 54 at the age of nine participated in the teams.

- Do parents send such young guys to contests mostly?

- In completely different ways. I've talked to the guys myself: some are brought by parents, some have teachers at schools who help apply for participation, and some schools have entire volunteer clubs and associations that announce their projects.

- In your opinion, do people know that such "social elevators" exist? Is there any interest in them?

- We are seeing an increase in interest in all projects, and this is understandable: more people are learning, more understand that these contests are really beneficial. Among the youth audience, we have the largest number of participants in the My First Business project: 408,000 schoolchildren took part in the first season, 675,000 in the second, and 705,000 in the third, which is currently in its final stages.. This is, of course, a very large number.

There are already more than 600,000 participants in the Big Change, which has just started. But in general, there are tens of thousands of people in each project, and in each project there is growth, there is no decrease in the number of participants anywhere.

In general, more than 1.2 million people are already participating in the main contests aimed at schoolchildren, despite the fact that 3.5 million people are already participating in all the contests on our platform.

- In your opinion, how will such a drastic transition to distance learning caused by the fight against coronavirus affect your participants, most of whom are students and schoolchildren? Will the quality of their training decrease?

- I think that the period of self-isolation did not negatively affect the children's knowledge. Rather, this whole situation has caused a number of inconveniences for everyone.: for schoolchildren, students, teachers and professors. However, universities and schools immediately switched to distance learning, so I hope there will be no significant loss of knowledge.

At the same time, I don't believe in the seriousness of talking about everyone and everything going online. These couple of months have clearly shown that everyone lacks face-to-face participation: teachers, university students, school teachers, and students themselves talk about this. After all, the learning process is not only about gaining new knowledge, it is also about communication, an opportunity to discuss some new points with each other and learn from each other. Therefore, I think that if we completely switch to online learning, then we will definitely get a decrease in the quality of education, and in two months, I hope, knowledge has not been lost.

- Alexey Gennadievich, in general, how much has the situation with the coronavirus affected the contests and projects of the platform?

- It did, but not critically. Many of our projects and contests were originally planned in an online format, and most of the projects that we are implementing are going exactly as we planned them.

For example, the Big Change project is in full swing right now. The application stage runs until June 23, and it is all based on correspondence communication: participants can apply, then take special tests aimed not at determining their level of knowledge, but at understanding which areas are closer to each participant, helping them choose the area of development that suits everyone best. to a specific student. And all this is just going online. Next, we plan face-to-face events. We hope that they will take place on the dates that we have planned: previously, this is the period from July 20 to September 14.

- So it wasn't a big blow to you?

- Of course, some adjustments had to be made: for example, the competition for schoolchildren "My first Business" was held without the CapFest festival, which was supposed to host a battle of startup projects and the official closing of the competition. Now we will decide how to organize it: either the festival will be held later, or we will still hold it online.

One of the biggest losses is probably the final of the Leaders of Russia contest, which was supposed to take place in Sochi at the end of March, but because of this situation we had to postpone it.

We also postponed several semi-finals and finals of the "Teacher of the Future" and "Masters of Hospitality" contests, which were supposed to be closed at the Russia - Land of Opportunities forum in April, but we also had to postpone it.

- But there is no question of cancellation?

- We hope that none of these events will be lost, everything will take place, but a little later. We do not want to conduct them online, so the most valuable thing in these events is the communication of participants with each other, as well as with mentors and experts.

Of course, there were discussions to hold the superfinal of the "Leaders of Russia" remotely, but we refused to do so and definitely do not want to do so - we are waiting for a favorable situation. As soon as she allows, we will hold all these events in a face-to-face format.

On the other hand, we managed to transfer a number of contests online. For example, on May 21, the remote protection of the projects of the "My Country is My Russia" contest began. There are several nominations, for each of which remote project defenses will be conducted until the end of June.

And last week we summed up the results of the qualifying stage of the engineering championship. "CASE-IN". It went well: both the participants and the heads of universities noted that despite the fact that this year it was completely online, we managed to get good results: 3,829 students from 84 universities participated in the student league, 109 youth teams participated in the league of young professionals, and the school league, which 515 schoolchildren from 70 regions of Russia entered, with 207 teams. We have scheduled face-to-face events for this competition in the fall.

As a result, we spent some time online, moved some things, and even added some things that we hadn't planned on. In particular, on the basis of our management workshop "Senezh" we have launched many different online workshops, events, lectures and even a special project "Full speed ahead!", which started on April 13. A wide variety of experts tell you how to organize leisure time, come up with new business ideas, how to learn how to manage your time better, and how to work more effectively in a team. In fact, all the projects are now actively conducting various workshops online.

Interviewed by Yuri Kukin

A source: The portal "The Future of Russia. National projects"