Focusing on What’s Next for Russia: Smart School Project by Samsung

One only has to look at the numbers on Russia to understand its place in the world. Russia is arguably the largest country in the world, taking up approximately 12.5% of Earth’s inhabited land area. And as of 2012, Russia’s population reached 143.5 million. Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and is also the largest native language in Europe.

Yes, the numbers are impressive and it might reflect its role in the world. However, Russia’s future, just like any other countries, lies in the hands of one thing, the future generation. Since IT technology and innovation is being emphasized in countries all over the world, it is important for Russia to emphasize IT in their field of education. Samsung, in this specific matter, is on the same page as Russia.

Focusing on what’s Next for Russia

Samsung School project in Russia illustrates Samsung’s effort in Russia to improve the quality of education, especially in the field of IT. Increasing the awareness and the interest in IT innovation among high school students – educating the future IT engineers and technicians – is the main goal of Smart School. Overall, the project is designed to train 5,000 students in 20 Russian regions over a five-year period.

The project has already been successfully launched in three cities – Kazan, Moscow, and Samara – and plenty of other cities, such as Khabarovsk, Krasnoyarsk, Voronezh, Sochi, Chelyabinsk, Omsk, and Kaliningrad, are scheduled to join the list.

So what does Smart School in Russia look like?

School classrooms will be equipped with the Samsung School integrated solution, which includes an interactive whiteboard – a 75-inch Samsung LCD-panel, Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite laptops, and Samsung GALAXY Note 10.1 tablets for students and teachers.

There will be various courses on methodological materials developed by experts at the Samsung Electronics Russia Research Center, with support from professors at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT). Many of the courses contains university level programs, including modern programming languages, such as C, combined with practical Java programming skills for Android mobile devices.

As part of the project, Samsung will also cover the costs of teacher training and salaries, and will provide assistance in implementing the educational process.

Students who complete the course will acquire unique skills that will allow them to independently create applications for smartphones and tablet computers. They will also receive a certificate of completion upon finishing the course. Of course, they also get to go on some field trips. For example, over 40 high school students enrolled in the Smart School program at the Temo Center in Moscow and visited the Samsung Electronics factory in the Kaluga region along with their teachers, where students get an up-close look at the assembly lines, as well as insights on organizational aspects of a large enterprise and Samsung products.

As enthusiastic as students are, the future of Russia seems very promising. With the Samsung Smart School Project, Samsung hopes that high school students can prepare for university and, eventually, lay the foundation for a successful career in IT and programming. When you look at the faces of these passionate and studious students, whatever is next for Russia, it seems promising.