From cases to careers: how the CASE-IN championship helps ALROSA find talent

 Mining is one of the oldest and most prestigious areas of the CASE–IN championship, a project of the Presidential platform "Russia – the Land of Opportunities". The Miners, with the support of ALROSA, regularly demonstrate their high class, impressing the industry community with bold and technological solutions. 

ALROSA, the global leader in the diamond mining industry, has been a strategic partner of the company for many years, bringing together more than 10,000 students from 65 specialized universities in Russia and the CIS countries under one wing. "For ALROSA, the Mining field at the CASE-IN championship is not just a competition, but an opportunity to see real engineering solutions from talented young people. We see how the participants immerse themselves in real production tasks, and every season we are surprised by the depth of solution development," the company noted. 

ALROSA experts personally develop cases based on real-world production situations, and then evaluate students' projects and select the most talented to be included in the talent pool. 

In the XIV season of the CASE-IN championship, which is dedicated to the topic "Technologies of the future", the diamond mining company asked the participants of the qualifying stages to solve the problem faced by current employees – the suspension of rock mass in underground mines. The problem is serious: when large pieces of rock or ore get stuck in the ore outlet, the technological process gets stuck, downtime occurs and, most dangerously, additional safety risks appear. 

The 13 teams that performed the best performed the task, which will compete in the championship finals in Moscow on May 21, 2026. Among them is the GeoTim team from Kuzbass State Technical University named after T.F. Gorbachev, which approached the case from an unexpected angle.

"My mentor and I thought it was important not to deal with hovering after it appeared, but to understand the properties of the breed in advance. If you immediately know the hardness and other geological characteristics, you can more accurately design drilling and blasting operations and avoid the appearance of problematic fractions," said Vyacheslav Vinogradov, captain of the team. 

The essence of their technology is the principle of operational geology: right during drilling, special sensors collect data on the physical and mechanical properties of the rock. This information is processed by artificial intelligence, which builds an accurate map and determines the optimal amount of explosive for each well. Thanks to this approach, neither too large "oversized" pieces are formed in the rock, nor too small a fraction, which adheres to the walls and provokes new freezes. Experts separately noted GeoTim for the fact that the team proposed to deal with freezes in advance, rather than eliminate the consequences.

The finalists from the Siberian State Industrial University, united in the Geostart team, relied on a combination of neural networks and unmanned aircraft. "To combat ore freezing at the Udachny mine, we proposed using AI and drones. Reconnaissance drones use neural networks to find the "keystone", and the delivery drone precisely attaches a charge to it. This solution saves explosives and, most importantly, ensures the complete safety of employees," explained Elizaveta Mekhova, a second–year student.

For a company, participating in a CASE-IN is a recruiting tool and an investment in its own future. At the final of the championship, she will once again be able to select future highly qualified specialists who, after completing a paid internship, will have the opportunity to find a job at ALROSA and contribute to the development of the mining industry.