The youth forum "Bridge to the future" was held in Garage SBI, NSTU NETI on October 3-4.
The forum is the first stage of the "Prostranstvo Rosta" (Growth Space) program starting a series of events to generate startup ideas and launch startups. The program "Prostranstvo Rosta" is implemented with the support of the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs. The forum was attended by more than 200 people, 5 companies and 10 moderators and game testers. Svetlana Malina, Deputy Head of the Youth Policy Department, Novosibirsk Oblast Ministry of Education, opened the project session of the Forum. The main goal of the forum’s first day was to immerse young people in the discussion of a City of the Future problems and search for the technologies that are necessary for it, as well as to examine the existing Smart City technologies. The goal was successfully achieved, as the participants talked about how they see the City of the Future and presented the technologies that it should embrace within social, technological and IT projects. In addition, the guests learned about modern technological solutions in the presentations about Russian companies by Marina Mokina (Coca-Cola), Alexey Sobolev (Smart Consulting), Evgeny Dubrovin (Novoterra), Denis Armeyev (NSTU), Yan Aleksandrovsky (iVoice), Svetlana Khanina (MTS).
The second day of the forum saw mixed teams of participants forming a holistic image of the City of the Future, considering the problems of Novosibirsk and looking for the opportunities to bring our city closer to the image of an ideal future city. The solutions for Novosibirsk were developed with the help of game mechanics and then presented to a team of city residents, which included City Manager (Daria Borovikova, Electronic Devices Department, Radioengineering and Electronics Faculty ), Green Manager (Alexander Boltenkov, Lyceum 176), Architect of the Future (Christina Trofimova, Management Department, Business Faculty), IT Specialist (Daria Pashko, SBI "Garage"), Unicorn Innovator (Alena Kanina, Marketing and Service Department, Business Faculty), Community Manager (Irina Dolgikh, Management Department, Business Faculty), Futurologist (Anton Yupashevsky, Electronic Devices Department, Radioengineering and Electronics Faculty), Future Guest of the City (Andrey Krivitsky, businessman), Whipping boy for Mobility and Transport (Ilya Khlopov, gametester). Considering feedback from the city residents and their own developments, the team members clarified the parameters of projects for the City of the Future in terms of ecology, mobility (transport), social sphere, comfort, resources regeneration, education, medicine and safety. Each project was a collection of a future city problems, technologies that solve these problems and startups that will be launched with the view of certain technologies.
At the end of the forum, the participants learned how to join startup teams and were able to submit preliminary applications for the participation in the following events of the "Prostranstvo Rosta" program.