The mentor of the CASE-IN championship, Roman Kolesnikov, is a laureate of the All–Russian Startup Leaders as a Diploma Award

The final of the All-Russian competition of final qualifying papers in the Startup as Diploma format took place in the Moscow Digital Business Space, during which awards were also presented to the laureates of the All-Russian Startup as Diploma Leaders Award. The award recognizes the contribution to the development of student entrepreneurship and the formation of an ecosystem of startup support at universities.

Associate Professor of the Department of Management and Law at the Higher School of Technology and Energy of St. Petersburg State University of Applied Sciences, Candidate of Economics, mentor of the CASE-IN Championship Roman Kolesnikov won the Award in the Scientific Supervisor nomination. The nomination was declarative: experts selected the best among 136 applications from 8 federal districts.

Under the leadership of Roman Kolesnikov, student Sofya Tyukhteeva represented the University of Industrial Technology and Design in the Startup as a Diploma project. The CTEKLOFF startup entered the Top 15 of the best in Russia, and Sofia became a finalist in the competition.

Roman Kolesnikov was engaged in the comprehensive support of a startup — from the initial idea to a completed business project ready for expert evaluation. He helped formulate a problem and a value proposition, justify a technological solution, identify a target audience, analyze the market, competitive environment, risks, economic impact, and implementation prospects.

Special attention was paid to ensuring that the final qualifying work was not only academically correct, but also had the signs of a real entrepreneurial project with practical significance and potential for further development. In working with students, the associate professor of the Department of Management and Law used his experience in supporting projects in the field of sustainable development, ESG, closed-loop economics, waste recycling and the creation of new materials from recycled materials, as well as mentoring experience in the CASE-IN championship, university acceleration programs of St. Petersburg State University University and the HSE Innovation Week.

"I am very pleased to have won the leadership competition for the final qualifying papers of the Startup as Diploma program, because for me this is an important professional recognition and confirmation of the importance of the work that we do with students at the university. This victory shows that practice-based learning, a project-based approach and the development of technological entrepreneurship really produce tangible results. It is especially valuable to me that the "Startup as a diploma" format allows students to consider their final qualifying work not as a formal result of their studies, but as a real project with the prospect of further development. I take this award as an appreciation not only of personal contribution, but also of the effectiveness of the entire mentoring system, teamwork, and support for student initiatives. This is an important incentive for my teaching career to continue developing projects at the intersection of science, technology, economics and entrepreneurship. Winning the competition strengthens the confidence that the university can be an environment where student ideas turn into in-demand technological and business solutions." Roman Kolesnikov shared.

The competition is held within the framework of the Startup as a Diploma program, which in the 2024-2025 academic year covered more than 5,000 students from 204 universities in 73 regions. The partners of the event in 2026 were ASI, Delovaya Rossiya, Rosatom, Rostec, Rosselkhoznadzor, SPLAT Global, TASS and other organizations.

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