Sirius is a territory where talent becomes a national treasure."

The Sirius educational model is reaching an international level. At the initiative of Russia and Kazakhstan, schools and centers for working with talented youth are being prepared in Almaty and Astana. The project has received the support of the presidents of both countries and will become a platform for joint training of future personnel. Elena Shmeleva, Chairman of the Council of the Sirius Federal Territory, head of the Talent and Success Foundation, and a member of the Presidential Council for Science and Education, told Izvestia on June 3 on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). Read more about the joint project, the support of young scientists and the challenges facing science today in the material.

"We have created an advanced model that is used as a basis abroad"

— Elena Vladimirovna, it is already becoming a good tradition that you come to visit us, at the Izvestia studio, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. And each time you have more and more news. This year you are launching big projects in Kazakhstan. Can you tell us more about this?

— First of all, thank you for the invitation. It is also a good tradition for me to open my participation in the St. Petersburg Economic Forum with a big interview with Izvestia. And it is important to note that the St. Petersburg Economic Forum pays more and more attention to the topic of education every year. And if we talk about Kazakhstan, we are opening an international school "Sirius" and a center for working with talents based on the model that we created in Russia.

In a few years, we have gone from an experiment in the south of Russia to a national center for working with the talents of children and youth across the country. In fact, we have created an advanced educational model, which is taken as a basis at the state level abroad. This model is reproduced in Kazakhstan almost literally. But not as a guideline, but as a real architectural, pedagogical and, in its own way, methodical project. The presidents of the two countries have already started construction.

It is important to emphasize that this approach is shared by the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev himself. During Vladimir Putin's state visit to the Republic of Kazakhstan on May 28, speaking in the presence of delegations from both countries, he noted that the Sirius project is very useful for training future personnel. The President also emphasized the professionalism of the team and its willingness to work, and also announced his intention to develop the project further, both in terms of expanding geography and improving the quality of education.

Of course, such a strategic task from the president of a friendly country is a great responsibility, but at the same time it is also a great joy. Therefore, our schools in Almaty and Astana are not created according to the franchise model, but as independent sovereign institutions built in accordance with our standards. And now the whole model is being adapted in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

"Our experience formed the basis of a joint project between Russia and Kazakhstan"

— Do I understand correctly that in this case you actually become an exporter? And if so, what exactly do you export: educational programs, methodological developments, educational materials, or perhaps we are talking about the work of our leading teachers on site? What does this model generally look like in practice?

— The most important thing for us is that we export not just an educational product. We are creating a space and a development environment where talented young people from our countries can study and work together. Future researchers, innovators, educators, and teachers of the Russian language will interact and form in this environment from childhood. It is the logic and values that are laid down here that will largely determine future discoveries and achievements.

Therefore, it is very important that this is a holistic educational model. Separate textbooks, separate modules, and separate programs don't work by themselves. Only a complete system works. It allows you to retain talents and allows the child to think about what area he wants to realize his potential, what task he intends to solve, with whom, why and how.

We have been building and practicing this methodology for ten years on behalf of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, together with children and teachers. Strong teachers came, brought their own methods, and we wove them into the Sirius environment. Therefore, it is important that the teaching will be conducted in two languages. These are partnerships that respect teachers and professional school traditions that were rooted in the Soviet Union and developed in accordance with various national objectives.

We consider this as the first step towards creating a common environment for talented young people in both Russia and Kazakhstan. As for the further path of graduates of our joint programs, they will enroll in the Sirius University of Science and Technology, and will also participate in competitive programs at the Sirius Educational Center.

— So talented guys and students from Kazakhstan will be able to continue their studies at the university, and then, if desired, work at Sirius, in the production center?

— Of course, including in the youth science park, which we are currently creating in Astana. The entire infrastructure will be built according to the standards that have already proved their effectiveness at Sirius. At the same time, it's not just about education. The sphere of culture, art, and sports is everything that goes together and provides a child with the opportunity to develop harmoniously and be a part of his generation and his country.

"The Sirius–Rosa Khutor Art Festival is a territory of creativity"

— Continuing the topic of international projects, I can't help but ask about the Sirius — Rosa Khutor International Festival of Arts for Children and Youth. Previously, Sirius was mainly associated with the coastal cluster, but now you are expanding into the mountainous direction. As far as I understand, this project simultaneously solves two tasks: on the one hand, it creates a space for interaction and communication between children, and on the other, it gives an impetus to the development of tourism in the mountain cluster. How did this idea come about and how is this format implemented in practice?

— The idea arose from a fairly simple observation. According to Vladimir Vladimirovich's decision, made back in 2014, children in the field of art come to Sirius every month. Today we already see them on the world's leading stages. These are guys who are seriously engaged in painting, music, choreography — and I think they study even more than mathematics.

However, we noticed an important feature: during a month of study, 24 days at Sirius, these children with exceptional abilities in music, dance and art come to study with the best teachers, but the environment itself, the community, does not have time to form. Meanwhile, it is precisely this kind of friendly and professional environment that becomes the most important resource for a lifetime. She supports a person by helping them develop.

Therefore, the idea of the festival is an attempt to create such an environment. This is not a competition where there is always a winner and a loser, but a space for joint creativity. And you correctly said why Rosa Khutor... Because the Caucasus Mountains are a fundamentally different aesthetic. We want to show that cultural tourism in Russia is not only about museums and historical cities, but also about vibrant contemporary young art. And this space itself becomes a part of the artistic expression of our youth. Therefore, we really hope that the festival will be an annual one.

"Artificial intelligence is not about the future, but what we are working with today"

— We talk a lot about the talents and development of young people, but now they face such a serious challenge as artificial intelligence. Judging by the communication here on the site, many still do not fully understand how to approach it and what to do with it. At Sirius, as far as I know, you are already actively using artificial intelligence, in particular to create innovative solutions in transport, which is especially important for the Sochi region. How do you plan to work with such a "block" as artificial intelligence?

— Artificial intelligence is also an element of the environment that feeds on real tasks and attracts the smartest schoolchildren, students and young scientists on real tasks. For me personally, AI in transport is comparable in terms of impact to the nuclear project in the Soviet Union.

However, artificial intelligence of transport is not about the future, but something that we are already working with in the federal territory. A single intelligent transport platform consisting of 497 intelligent cameras has been created here, and the traffic situation is monitored in real time, including automatic detection of violations. In the first months, about 200 thousand violations were recorded in our country, but now there are significantly fewer of them.

It turns out that our technology helps to ensure compliance with the rules of the road. And Sirius became the first site in Russia to create such an integrated system. But this is just the beginning. Now we have a controlled entry zone of a new format, where AI management changes the transport behavior of an entire city. At the same time, a test complex of unmanned transport systems is being created jointly with Yandex, Russian Railways, KAMAZ, GAZ, TMH and the Moscow government, where we test vehicles in real conditions.

In addition, we are currently working with our partners to create opportunities for a transportation engineering center within the national Technology Leadership and Critical Technology Development campus in St. Petersburg. This adds a maritime dimension, unmanned vessels, Arctic logistics, and the Northern Sea Route. This is a real challenge for the smartest students and young scientists in the country!

Sirius is a unique territory where talent becomes a national treasure."

— There is a practice in journalism to give some kind of succinct definition, a metaphor that would characterize the phenomenon as a whole. You can say that you have a Russian Silicon Valley. But how do you metaphorically describe what you create?

— You really correctly said that this is a metaphor. Overall, Silicon Valley is confusing. Why? Silicon Valley is a place where they do business with technology. There is a technology, it needs to be created as best as possible, better understood, better sold, and so on. And Sirius is also a place where Russia learns to work with its main resource - the ability of people to think, learn, create and take on ambitions for solving problems that proved unsolvable yesterday.

— Maybe Sirius will become a metaphor for the new process?

— It also seems to me that we need another definition. For example: Sirius is a federal territory where talent becomes a national treasure. And it turns out that a child from anywhere in the country who has the ability can come here. This is the idea of the president, laid down during his creation. This is a unique solution — the Olympic legacy is being passed on to teachers. For what? In order to develop this potential. And most importantly, how to unleash your talent? Don't settle for something that's below your potential. We must try to solve the most difficult tasks.

If we "infect" schoolchildren and students with our national tasks, the most difficult ones, then it will start working for Russia in all segments. That is, first we open up the field of national tasks, there we also show which technologies maximize the quality of life or the quality of the environment, and then how it really works. In this way, we give both the student and the student the opportunity to plunge into the real solution of problems. It's fascinating, inspiring, and of course, it just needs to be supported.

Therefore, we are proud of the status of the national methodological center, which Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin gave us after 10 years of our work. And we are trying to implement this model wherever our partners open doors.

Sirius is open to those who can and want to solve complex problems."

— Over the years, tens of thousands of talented students have already passed through your programs. Do you follow their further path and professional development? Now school graduates have a responsible time — exams are underway, university admission is ahead. What would you like to wish talented young people who are just entering a conscious adult life?

— Of course, we know our graduates. Thousands of them became students at leading Russian universities, and hundreds became young scientists. The alumni community is an incredibly important strategic resource for all of us. Because a person who solved a real scientific and technological problem at the age of 14 can make a managerial decision at the age of 30-35. He can work in public administration, in business, in science. We would also like to evaluate it someday. We meet with graduates both here at SPIEf and at the annual congress of young scientists at Sirius.

Of course, I would like us to systematically monitor their fate and know all aspects of their development. Which programs helped? What programs distracted you? How can we create such an environment at the level of each school, how to train teachers, how to train psychologists? Realizing that this model has taken place, that it is in demand and gives results, we now want to learn about every aspect. This is not for reporting, but for our graduates and our technologies to improve. This is a major national task that we will be addressing for the second decade.

If we talk about wishes, then the most important thing is not to agree to any compromises regarding the tasks that need to be solved. Because now it is a very rare moment in Russia when a huge number of technologies have come up with a new design, and there will be fundamentally different technological solutions. Therefore, complex tasks are now available and open to those who can and want to solve them. That's what Sirius exists for, to bring together educators who see what can be of practical benefit and talk about it starting at school. All this is necessary to maintain Russia's technological leadership, including in areas where we have always been ahead.