Society

Technology education is just one of the areas that the RAR and its head, Alisa Konyukhovskaya, are engaged in. Thanks to this association, we are gradually ceasing to anthropomorphize robotics and the West is learning more about Russian technologies and supporting the Russian market with investments. Here, Ms Konyukhovskaya tells Success Builder how a philosopher can find her calling in technology, who makes the rules for robots and why study at HSE to learn how to manage innovations.

The airspace is becoming increasingly accessible to humans, thanks in part to HSE University graduate Alexander Atamanov and his flying motorcycles and cars. A graduate of the HSE University Master’s Programme in Corporate Research, Development and Innovation Management, he is not only an inventor and engineer but also the successful director of several startups. In this interview with Success Builder, he explains how to save inventors from the patent bureaucracy, what the Moscow authorities think about unmanned flights over the capital and why inventors prefer to test their flying cars themselves.

Audio ads in VK can drive a person crazy with their intrusiveness. What’s more, until the Instreamatic platform appeared, advertisers had been unable to evaluate user reaction to their ads. Project co-founder and HSE graduate Stas Tushinskiy now lives and works in Silicon Valley. In an interview with Success Builder, he describes today’s audio market, how our hatred of advertising is measured and what a San Francisco ‘propiska’ (residence permit) does for a business.

As reported in Forbes, DeckRobot attracted $1.5 million in seed round investments this fall. Solo founder of the project and HSE graduate Anton Urbanas, aka Tony Urban, promises to simplify life for office workers by automating PowerPoint: now AI will create the slides. In this interview with Success Builder, Mr Urbanas explained why mathematicians are in demand in the U.S. right now, what could save office staff from sleepless nights with PowerPoint, how a startup can survive ‘imposter syndrome,’ whether it is easy to be a solo founder and how to start converting ideas into money.

Dan Livshitz, who graduated from the ICEF programme with a Bachelor’s degree in 2014, began his career at 18. At 22, he was the youngest associate ever to work for McKinsey in Europe. Now a top manager with the Gett global technology platform, Mr. Livshitz explained how to make the transition from consulting to technology, the inner workings of Gett and what not to say in a job interview.

After graduating with a master’s degree from the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences in 2002, Danila Vaskevich dreamed of the easy life, but the economic crisis in 2008 forced him to rethink his values. He left his management positions in consulting and retail to open the private Darovaniye (Gifted) school with the goal of, at least, helping children overcome ‘digital autism.’ He told Success Builder what HSE was like two decades ago, how to stop worshipping money, monetize your dreams, and create a ‘children’s MBA.’

With the transition online, basic education is experiencing a crisis even while specialised education is becoming more interesting and personalised. The Rebotica project has been successfully riding the digital wave with career guidance programmes for children that help students make independent choices about their future. Rebotica founder and HSE graduate Alexander Kiselev told Success Builder how the HSE incubator cultivates entrepreneurs, where to gather data on the education market, why Minecraft is useful in classes with schoolchildren and what you need to know to launch a startup.

Dmitry Storcheus set out to become an economist, but then shifted gears abruptly and went into mathematics. With a Master’s degree from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University, he now works as a software engineer for Google and continues to conduct research with his academic supervisor and work on his PhD thesis. Here, he tells Success Builder why ICEF Mathematics graduates are head and shoulders above their U.S. competitors, why Facebook and Google are opening departments at universities, what ‘self-learning neural networks’ are and whether they threaten to unleash a real-life ‘Terminator’ against humanity.

When Roman Stupin decided to go back to school after a decade of teaching and working with innovative startups, he chose HSE. That path started with continuing education programmes, then a Master’s degree and now postgraduate studies. 'I can't deny myself the pleasure of studying,' Mr Stupin admits. Here, he tells Success Builder how robotics can change education, what occupies specialists in Russian think tanks and why it’s time to replace government officials with algorithms.

Alexander Aksakov, who graduated from ICEF in 2011, now works as a Senior Associate in the New York office of Credit Suisse. He tells Success Builder how the wedding of an ICEF graduate became a gathering of economists from around the world, how U.S. employers recruit candidates in bars and how to earn an MBA from one of the world’s most prestigious schools.