THE ALL-RUSSIAN SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRAM "BIG CHALLENGES" WAS LAUNCHED AT SIRIUS
More than 420 schoolchildren came to Sirius for the "Grand Challenges.". This is one of the main scientific and technological programs of the Russian Federation, which allows schoolchildren to get involved in working on urgent tasks facing the country. In 2024, the program includes a new very topical, 14th direction "Ecology and Climate Change Studies". From July 1 to 24, the children will work in scientific classrooms and laboratories of Sirius University and the Sirius Educational Center, and at the end of the program they will present their work at a large festival of projects.
In 2024, 79 projects are proposed to the participants of the Grand Challenges. All of them are divided by 14 directionsEach of them is included in the Strategy for Scientific and Technological Development of the country. These areas include "Agro-industrial and biotechnologies", "Unmanned transportation and logistics systems", "Big data, artificial intelligence, financial technologies and machine learning", "Genetics and biomedicine", "Space technologies", "New materials" and others.
Each project has mentors - current employees of companies and scientific centers of Sirius partners - these are major scientific institutes, state corporations, industrial companies, including residents of the Sirius Innovation Science and Technology Center. At the program, students do not work on academic projects, but try their hand at solving real problems facing the country in a particular industry. Project managers include the students in the work process, allowing them to feel part of the team, perform a certain part of the work and propose their ideas.
This year, schoolchildren will analyze the influence of soil bacteria that stimulate plant growth, join the study of innovative tuberculosis vaccines and diabetes drugs, work with scientists on technologies for creating modern multifunctional biodegradable materials, study the prospects for the development of hydropower and nuclear industry in Russia, conduct environmental monitoring and learn how to interpret satellite images for environmental research. These and many other projects will be realized at Grand Challenges in 2024.
This year's program partners are such companies and organizations as Gazprombank, Kurchatov Institute, Generium, Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Sirius University of Science and Technology, All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources named after N.I. Vavilov, Y.A. Izrael Institute of Global Climate and Ecology, Zubov Oceanographic Institute, Geoscan and many others.
It is important that after the program the joint work of participants and company representatives does not end. The teams keep in touch and get an opportunity to continue working on the project. The result of such cooperation is prototypes of devices, scientific articles and even finished products. The children also receive invitations to visit the production sites of companies or undergo internships at Sirius partner companies. This allows schoolchildren to see with their own eyes how a typical working day of employees goes, to communicate with specialists from different departments, and to receive advice. Often it is participation in the Grand Challenges program that allows students to decide on a profession. There are cases when after the program students continued to work with their mentors and later joined the staff of these companies or connected their lives with related fields. Now former participants of the program themselves share experiencesThe project mentors come to the Grand Challenges as project mentors.
In addition to working on projects, the students are expected to attend numerous trainings, master classes and lectures by the heads of the program areas, renowned scientists, popularizers of science, and experts from leading companies and enterprises. Speakers at Sirius will include Alexei Likhachev, Head of Rosatom; Anna Romanovskaya, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Director of the Yu.A. Izrael Institute of Global Climate and Ecology, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Stepan Kalmykov, Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Head of Nanotechnology; Alexander Gasnikov, Rector of Innopolis University; Alexander Misurkin, Russian cosmonaut-researcher; and many other experts.
All program news is available at project website and other Sirius information resources.