Students solved engineering problems at the TPU CASE-IN Championship

Tomsk Polytechnic University hosted the qualifying stages of the Student League of the International Engineering Championship "CASE-IN", an international competition system for solving engineering cases. The students learned how to solve real engineering problems relevant to the country's largest companies and demonstrated their skills to future potential employers.

The CASE-IN Championship is being held for the sixth time, this year 39 TPU student teams took part in the qualifying stages. In total, 111 qualifying stages will be held in Russia and the CIS countries, where teams from 56 universities will perform.

The qualifying stages at TPU were held in five areas at once: "geological exploration", "metallurgy", "petrochemistry", "oil and gas business", "electric power industry". Moreover, "petrochemistry" is a new industry direction within the framework of "CASE-IN". It was at the TPU site that its grand opening took place and competitions in other participating universities of the championship were launched. The strategic partner of the direction was SIBUR.

"This is a very interesting format, an excellent organization of the championship, and most importantly, the event makes sense. This is a platform where students can start building their careers, and it is very important for us. TPU is one of the three participating universities, where there are five areas at once, this is an indicator of great importance.", — commented the head of the regional Department of Science and Higher Education Nikolai Minaev.

Representatives of SIBUR noted that during the qualifying stages they create a talent pool for themselves, look at talented students, find out how they live and think, what they are interested in. SIBUR offers students a practical case study that future employees of the company will have to solve regularly, which means that now they can test their strength.

"SIBUR is an environment where everyone can open up and show their potential. The students do not have any experience, so the solutions they offer may be unusual for us. If the groups working here offer a thousand solutions aimed at environmental friendliness, economy, and energy conservation, we will be happy to consider them."- assured the Director of Personnel Management of Tomskneftekhim LLC Andrey Belov.

In turn, Valentina Chernykh, Senior manager of brand development at SIBUR's employer, noted that the participants in the qualifying stages were offered a real task, relevant and necessary for the company. It concerns the new ZapSibNeftekhim polymer production complex, which is being built in Tobolsk and will become one of the largest in Russia.

"The guys were given figures on production capacity, costs, and energy efficiency, and they decided how to optimize these conditions in order to maximize the use of existing resources and possibly save some money and achieve additional benefits. We are happy to cooperate and give the guys the opportunity to feel like managers.", — added Valentina Chernykh.

The main theme of the 2018 championship is the development of the Arctic. Currently, one of the long-term tasks of the state is to improve the personnel training system for working in Arctic conditions. One of the goals of the CASE-IN championship is to attract the intellectual potential of future engineers of the fuel and energy and mineral resources complexes of Russia to solving real practical problems facing the country.

"We are trying to convey to the general public that the engineering and technical field is very important for our country, it is developing, that it is necessary to go here to study, large industry companies are waiting for talented guys to work. Another goal is to help our students become even more professionally and personally developed thanks to the case methodology. It allows them to learn more about the industry, about their future specialty, learn how to work in a team, make presentations, evaluate a project, this new knowledge will help them to be good professionals at work in the future. The level shown by TPU is growing every year, and it is worth noting the responsible attitude of the Tomsk Polytechnic University teachers who work with the students. For us, as organizers, the participants themselves become the driving force, they find time in their educational process to solve complex engineering problems, they are not afraid to come and present their solutions to the expert commission, which consists of university professors and representatives of industry companies."- said the director of the Reliable Change Charitable Foundation Artem Korolev.

Alexander Wagner, Vice-Rector for Education at TPU, noted that the CASE-IN championship has a tangible effect: it offers students and universities new forms of personal development, assessing the competencies of students of Russian universities specifically in engineering.

"This form is very interesting for universities in terms of evaluating the work of our teachers. This form allows the company to get to know the students during the training, and the guys to get to know the professional team. We conducted an analysis, and it showed that all the participants of the previous championships showed themselves, their achievements were noticed.", — told Alexander Wagner.

After the opening, the practical part took place, where the teams presented their solutions and defended their cases. The five winning teams will travel to Moscow in May for the final tests.

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