Bill Savage: 'The IT Market Has a Great Future in the Nizhny Novgorod Region'

On April 9, 2014 Vice-President of Intel, Bill Savage and the Director of HSE Nizhny Novgorod Oleg Kozyrev signed an agreement of strategic cooperation in science and education.

The Nizhny Novgorod campus of the National Research University 'Higher School of Economics' and the leading world producer of innovative semi-conductor components have agreed to work together on projects to develop an innovation ecosystem in the region. Both parties signed the agreement in a grand ceremony attended by the Regional Minister for Communications, Sergei Kuchin and the Deputy Minister for Education in the Nizhny Region, Ilya Korshunov.

Training new professionals to correspond to the demands of the IT industry will be a central part of this cooperation. As HSE’s Oleg Kozyrev put it, 'Being a National Research University, it is clearly in the interests of the HSE to do research with a major international IT company like Intel. We can work together on projects on big data, big data security and also on perceptual computing technology on changing the way humans interact with computers etc.'

Through the cooperation agreement, HSE Nizhny students will be able to participate in Intel projects all around the world. Intel's Bill Savage pointed out that staff at HSE Nizhny can apply for Intel grants for R & D projects and students can apply for grants to study at Intel's young scientists' schools. The agreement also gives the university the right to nominate candidates for corporate education projects. 

Ilya Korshunov said that as part of the cooperation between 'School, University and Business' we need to develop scientific potential in our young people while they are still in school. A project group made up of students and gifted high-school kids will be set up under the guidance of professors at HSE Nizhny to work on real business challenges.      

The agreement provides for HSE Nizhny students to apply on a competitive basis for short or long-term internships with Intel, to take part in the company’s education programs and to attend lectures, master-classes, project seminars and consultations given by Intel experts.

'To reach their potential in this field, graduates need leadership qualities and good English as well as good technical training. HSE Nizhny is preparing just these kinds of specialists which explains why 80% of the current interns in Nizhny are from the HSE campus,' explained Valery Cherepennikov, Director of R&D at Intel Russia.

Colleagues from HSE Nizhny and Intel will set up a joint working group in the very near future to oversee that projects in the cooperation agreement are carried out as planned.