At the CASE-IN championship, young minds of the Urals create technical projects

International Engineering Championship "CASE-IN" It has already been held for the ninth time and has become a platform for the competition of both established professionals and young talents. The project is part of the presidential platform "Russia is a land of opportunity." created on the initiative of Vladimir Putin.

"The platform provides a wide range of opportunities for self-realization, helps you decide on a profession, complete an internship or find your first job, get a mentor or new knowledge, – notes Alexey Agafonov, Deputy General Director of ANO "Russia – the Land of Opportunities". – The CASE-IN championship provides an opportunity for young people from different regions of Russia to develop by solving real production tasks, engaging in scientific and technical creativity and receiving an engineering education. Last season, the championship's competitions brought together a record 10,015 schoolchildren, students and young professionals. The ninth season ended recently, which this time is dedicated to "Sustainable Development". The example of several thousand project participants proves that the championship is a ticket to the future, allowing you to move up the career ladder, find your dream job and become a true professional."

Social elevator

Intellectual and technical battles are held in five leagues: school, student, working specialties (for those with secondary technical education), young professionals, there are also special leagues – corporate championships.

Since 2013, 20,000 participants from almost all regions of the country have passed through the championship, their projects have been evaluated by 4,200 experts. For schoolchildren, this is a real chance to enroll in the most prestigious universities in the country, including master's and postgraduate studies on preferential terms or to get an internship at a large company. For enterprises, it is an opportunity to find valuable specialists or promising candidates who, in the course of their studies, will already be preparing to work in a particular company.

Grigory Fedotov, Head of the Department for Work with Educational Institutions and Methodological Support at MYCROMAIN, he said, addressing the students at the final of the championship in Moscow: "CASE-IN" helps participants to develop and master new skills and competencies. This is very important for you, as professionals in your field. By no means stop there. Be sure to take part in the new season of the championship, which promises to be no less exciting."

The permanent one agrees with his colleague Chairman of the Mining Expert Commission, Director of IMC Montan Sergey Nikishichev: "Today you are already building your way in a professional career and adult life, learning the nuances of solving and structuring ideas. Strive to continue participating in championships of this magnitude, thank you for your zeal to win!"

Participants do not solve detached tasks from textbooks, but develop practical projects that can be implemented in real conditions. Thus, the championship is an active social elevator for young people with a technical mindset.

Ural talents

Ural Mining University has been participating in the "CASE-IN" since 2013, the year of the championship's creation, and is one of the top three universities in the Mining field. The university's teams took first and second places during the championship.

You can observe the social elevator in action, which is the championship, using the example of the Yekaterinburg team "Watch". Last year, four students of the Ural Mining University became silver medalists of the "CASE-IN" in the field of Mining. He talks about this experience and its fruits. team captain Maxim Klyuev.

"It was a rewarding experience and an interesting challenge., – Maxim thinks. – There is a diamond quarry in the Republic of Sakha. It is very deep, and specialists are faced with the problem of its ventilation. Our task was to determine the most effective way to ventilate it. We have proposed to carry out a complex of underground mining operations, through which air will be pumped or sucked in by an auxiliary ventilation system located on the surface."

The decision was appreciated by representatives of ALROSA, the main partner of the championship, which set this task. Three representatives of the Vakhta team have already completed practical training at the enterprise's production facility along with other CASE-IN participants. Maxim was also offered a job at a leading diamond mining company, but he preferred to practice at the Institute of Mining of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he currently works. He believes that the experience gained and the expansion of his social circle helped him decide on his future job.

UrFU has been participating in the championship since 2015 and ranks 1st in the ranking of universities in the field of Metallurgy: The university's teams have twice become champions in this field.

In 2018 Inna Naschetnikova became the winner of the Student League in the field of Metallurgy.. Her project was appreciated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom she met personally. She is one of the top 100 graduates of UrFU and is currently developing titanium implants with biomechanical properties identical to those of bone tissue. Inna believes that her case will still bring practical results, she is sure that the championship was very useful for her.

"Students are quite far from practice and don't really understand how things work in real production., – says Inna. – The "CASE-IN" is just drawing up assignments on production problems. By participating in the presidential platform project "Russia is a Land of Opportunity," you realize that your ideas can be heard at the state level. It gives you a lot of motivation." 

In addition to success in metallurgy, UrFU is one of the five universities participating in the championship in the field of "Electric power industry".

Not a child's scale

The tasks that are offered to young people are really large-scale. For example, last year, the participants of the youngest School League solved the problem of plastic waste recycling, which is relevant for the Sverdlovsk Region and other regions of the country. And this year they were developing solutions related to the development of an entire region – the Amur Region.

And the students offered ideas for such fields as geological exploration, mining, metallurgy, oil and gas, petrochemistry, project engineering, digital atom, electric power industry.

This year, those who chose the Exploration direction worked to improve the efficiency of diamond mining operations within the Markhinsky-2 site in the Republic of Yakutia. And the participants of the Petrochemistry direction formed a project for the technological modernization of a polyethylene terephthalate production facility.

The championship, whose participants solve such tasks, has appropriate support: the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation, the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, the Agency strategic initiatives, as well as such Russian business giants as Sibur, Alrosa, SO UES, RusHydro, Rosatom, Tatneft, NIPIGAZ, Rosseti, Mycromine and others.

Alexey Kulminsky – Deputy Chief Engineer for Underground Work at the Yakutniproalmaz Institute I watched as one of the participants of the "CASE-IN" had an internship at their company: "The competition is serious. He helps students to open up – even in this time of coronavirus, with distance learning. The guys force themselves to study, learn a lot of new and interesting things. Even if they don't win the championship, they broaden their horizons a lot and start thinking differently. I would like more guys to participate in this championship."

Many of these companies offer internships with subsequent employment not only to the winners, but also to the participants of the "CASE-IN". And, unlike most university or college graduates, they will not have to look for a job after graduation – by this time they will already be pursuing a career in the largest Russian companies.

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