MIEM HSE’s Annual Technoshow Will Be Held Online

Project 'Development of an aircraft control training stand', MIEM Technoshow 2019

© HSE University / Mikhail Dmitriev

On May 31, MIEM students will present their projects at the Institute’s annual exhibition, which this year will be held online. Of 200 team projects created at the Institute this past academic year, the expo will feature the 25 most brilliant and successful, both in terms of innovation and practicality.

The Technoshow is not just a project exhibition. ‘The Technoshow has become a celebratory event that marks the completion of each year at the Institute, where we focus on project-based learning,’ says MIEM Director and Academic Supervisor Evgenii Krouk. ‘The pandemic is no reason to abandon it.’ In virtual pavilions, student team leaders will present their projects, many of which were initiated by the Institute’s business partners.

HSE News Service spoke with MIEM faculty members about how projects are selected for the expo, which areas show the most promise for next year, and how MIEM is continuing to expand its project-based education.

Maxim Chuyashkin, Director of the Center for Project Development Management at MIEM

How students get involved in a project

Throughout the year, the project office accepts project applications from departments and faculty members, external clients, and students. All applications go into our Project Sandbox, where they undergo an initial evaluation that checks their general idea, the completeness of the project description, and the project’s overall significance. At the second stage, MIEM teachers evaluate the applications in terms of their content, the complexity of their implementation, their potential usefulness, and so on. At this stage, the size and composition of the project team are also determined, and a team leader is recommended. After passing all of these assessment stages, the project is entered into the catalog of available projects, where potential team members select them. To get onto a team, you need to apply and successfully pass an interview with the project manager.

At the end of the academic year, students begin to choose their projects for the next year, reach out to potential leaders, and form teams. Team members are encouraged to learn and apply new skills.

Veronika Prokhorova, Deputy Director of MIEM

Project work at MIEM

Our institute turned to project-based education in 2018, focusing on third-year students. Since then, we have been constantly increasing the number of projects, more and more students are getting involved in project work, and the number of companies we partner with continues to grow. But much more importantly, students and teachers’ attitudes towards the educational process are changing, as well as the approach we take to designing the curriculum itself. More and more activities are built around projects. The learning process is no longer just learning. The Institute has strengthened its standing as a place of scientific discovery, innovative product creation, and self-realization. In short, we are building an open, project-oriented MIEM, and we believe that together we can find the right solutions.

Anton Sergeev, MIEM Advisor, Expert and Project Manager

Industry Demand

From our industry partners, we are seeing an explosive increase in interest in artificial intelligence systems, machine learning, big data, and the Internet of things. If a few years ago these things were just trendy hot topics, now a lot has changed. We receive carefully thought out requests for promising robotic systems in a wide variety of industries, including security, education, transport, and trade. The business sector has a clear understanding of how to make money using smart technology. They come to MIEM to test out their bold hypotheses by enlisting clever minds and young talents. Within the framework of the project model, we can assemble student teams for almost any task in IT or microelectronics, quickly test hypotheses, or assemble a prototype. This is convenient for large companies, and they see the benefit of working with a university in practice.

Of course, right now you can’t overlook the impact of COVID-19—the world is actively moving online. We make new digital products both for ourselves and for partners. Now the educational issue of online instruction is largely resolved. The next step is robotic proctoring, when the system itself monitors the class. The problem of how to remotely access laboratory equipment remains to be solved. There is a demand for these decisions both in the education system itself and in business. And MIEM has already begun working on these kinds of systems.

Vasily Burov, MIEM Advisor, Expert

Trends, directions, and areas of development

A significant number of the Institute’s current projects relate to cyberphysical systems, which is a field that does not get a lot of attention but is in fact one of the world’s fastest growing today. This is all related to the Internet of things, robotic systems, smart things, and industrial and home automation. In particular, I would like to mention the project areas related to medical applications at the intersection of mathematics, cybernetics, and electronics. This has already been a crucial area on the global stage for a long time, but now with the coronavirus pandemic, which we have all been enduring for the past several months, I think that interest in this field in Russia will only increase.

Another promising area that cannot be ignored is security apps. The modern digital world presents completely new demands in this area, and our students are quite capable of developing programmes to meet these demands. For example, this year there was a number of popular projects related to banking operation security using serious mathematical models and artificial intelligence technologies.

Denis Korolev, Associate Professor, School of Computer Engineering, MIEM, one of the Institute’s project direction visionaries, head of several projects

Digital MIEM: virtual pavilions at the Technoshow and an important direction for the Institute

This past year, we digitalized and upgraded a lot of aspects of MIEM. This was largely to the merit of our students, without whom we never would have been able to manage such a number of different tasks on our own. This included not only online services, but also building infrastructure (magnetic locks, video rooms, our miniature assembly hall on the 1st floor, and a media center). Building everything from the ground up, we established project work support, and, with the transition to online education, we launched our own online learning environment within a couple of weeks. More precisely, we added missing elements and linked them to existing services.

Those involved in all this did a great job. But the plan for next year looks even more impressive. To the already large number of new endeavors we have planned, we have added refining and developing support for those that have already been completed. We will also be in charge of the services that MIEM faculty and students use and are now critical for both project-based and academic work: personal accounts, digital footprints, flexible tracks, single window, and other projects.

That is far from all. Some of our plans go beyond the confines of MIEM. We are working on a ministerial project, building commercial services, and more. A few years ago, I would not have taken these fantasies seriously, but MIEM has changed a lot, and the main driver in this regard has been the students. Especially those who stay with us. In projects, in the master’s programme, and in the doctoral programme, those who remain at MIEM—those who care, those who believed us—bring their visions and ideas to fruition.

Valeria Nemna and Polina Podkopayeva contributed to this article.

Register for the Technoshow