Marat Bashirov: “People change the country, but technology helps them”

The expert told how every Russian can participate in the development of the country and what is the advantage of the crowd platform “Strong Ideas for New Times”

Last week, the IV forum “Strong Ideas for New Times” was held in Moscow, organized by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) together with VEB and the Roscongress Foundation. 2,000 people took part in it, while over 30,000 applications from all over the country were submitted to the crowd platform itself with the same name over the past year. The personal presence of the President at the event, and the scale itself, emphasize the special significance of this instrument, which allows the generation of promising initiatives from below, at the regional and city levels.

Thanks to its format, SINV quickly outgrew the “exhibition of ideas” format. It trains enterprising people in the project approach, that is, it develops their production potential, and also stimulates the introduction of innovations in the broad sense of the word – from optimizing production processes at work and improving life to the development of society. A crowd platform is a tool that has gained popularity as a format for supporting exclusively social initiatives. However, applied more broadly – to business, to government, and to the development of society – it provides the opportunity to instantly improve the entire spectrum of life. This year, applications were accepted in seven areas related to economics, entrepreneurship, public administration and technology, with the largest number coming in the “Quality of Life of the Population” nomination.

Which ideas get priority? The key criteria are practicality and efficiency. For example, Andrey Osokin from Ryazan has developed a training program based on SINV, which allows students to familiarize themselves with the work of the crowd platform in two semesters, study the best ideas, conduct their examination and then, based on them, create their own projects, which can later be submitted for participation in the forum. Another interesting example is the project of Polina Belyatskaya from Moscow, who proposed solving the problems with the shortage of IT specialists in the Russian labor market through more efficient use of available resources. Its SkillStaff platform for enriching the IT market with qualified personnel works using the power of artificial intelligence (AI), which helps redistribute the employment of IT specialists between projects of different organizations.

Another project in the IT field was proposed through SINV by Bulat Abdrashitov from the Tomsk region. He found a way to train professional IT specialists capable of independently completing projects in a short time frame. From the idea stage to test implementation it will take no more than four months if you train IT specialists in teams and under the guidance of mentors. There are enough such ideas on the platform. Based on the results of the forum, 1000 of the best projects were selected, which will be supported in their implementation.

Working with a crowd platform helps achieve two main goals. Firstly, to improve the quality of personnel in the country, and this is a problem that is discussed regularly at all levels. Secondly, in the end, this tool – that is, a crowd platform for selecting the most promising ideas – should stimulate economic growth.

As can be seen from the examples, the work of the SINV platform covers the entire country, and this year, as VEB Chairman Igor Shuvalov stated at the final forum, regions and cities were the priority. Six business missions were conducted in Tula, Lipetsk, Kaliningrad, Novgorod, Irkutsk regions and the Republic of Tatarstan. Moreover, experts from ASI and the state corporation VEB.RF do not just select ideas, they help their authors further develop and promote their projects, and give the initiators the opportunity to join a team of like-minded people. VEB Chairman Igor Shuvalov himself holds meetings in the regions with students and entrepreneurs, representatives of creative industries, creators of promising Russian brands, and also visits industrial enterprises. Such communication facilitates the subsequent implementation of ideas. This work of VEB and ASI also has a strategic dimension: the best ideas will be implemented in the new economic cycle.