Svetlana Chupsheva: We will promote projects supported by the ASI to international platforms
The Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) will engage in the export of Russian best practices and ensure the promotion of leading projects in international markets. This was reported by General Director of the ASI Svetlana Chupsheva at the meeting with the representatives of social, education, and business projects that took place on August 26 at the premises of the Boiling Point in Moscow.
"As for export, we are launching a project that might be structured and presented as soon as in September," Svetlana Chupsheva said. "We have analyzed various international rankings, competitions, and grant programs in any field having recognition and a vast outreach. We understand their criteria and evaluation system. To promote all initiatives and projects supported by the ASI to international platforms, we will together with you structure them and submit to international competitions and evaluation committees."
Svetlana Chupsheva reminded that individual initiatives and projects supported by the ASI had already grown to the global level and were a success with foreign partners.
"For example, the reform implemented by us jointly with the entrepreneurial community – National Business Initiative (NBI) for advancing in the Doing Business rating – is now referred to by the World Bank as the best reform and uploaded to the bank of best practices. It is extensively used by other countries. WorldSkills: We are today arbiters of future skills; it is this block of competencies (FutureSkills) and method that have been presented this year at the World Championship in Kazan. Approximately 30 our projects of the NTI (National Technology Initiative) have also reached the global level and took the lead in evaluation ratings. We would like this work to be performed on a regular basis," the head of the ASI emphasized.
She also noted that the digital platform for sharing best practices that the ASI is to present in November 2019 will also be focused on global markets.
"Our Smarteka will also have an export potential; we translate it both to English and Chinese. We are already partnering with global institutions for them to adopt our best solutions from there. The Agency's projects are of much interest to the World Bank, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. It is very interesting for our colleagues what solutions are being today implemented in Russia; they are ready to adopt them," Svetlana Chupsheva said.
The leader of the LoveDo project Timur Zhabbarov confirmed the demand of the participants of the ASI's ecosystem for export support.
"A great number of education projects that managed to become larger in scale and reach various regions faced abroad a high demand for humanitarian practices developing in the country, however, there have been no precedents of replicating such practices in non-CIS states. It may be about the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation or about Russiatourism; we would greatly appreciate an interface to export our practices and attract resources to the country," Timur Zhabbarov noted.
The leader of the Transport TV project Vadim Mokhov offered the ASI to revive the format of regional road shows. In his opinion, direct contacts with regional administrations on consolidated topical units will be more efficient than official letters in support of any individual projects.
"A simple and efficient way of promoting new projects seems to be as follows: 5–6 pilot regions are selected, e.g. cities with a million-plus population, and groups of 20–30 projects are formed, perhaps on competition basis, to go to the region together with a curator from the ASI. In person and not via correspondence though, in our case, this measure also proved to be efficient. There was not a single occasion when the ASI's mail remained unanswered. We could hold a series of meetings in the regions over a half-year period," Vadim Mokhov said.
Svetlana Chupsheva reminded that similar events were held by the ASI with participation of the leaders of education projects in the Far East.
"The response is significant, indeed, as head masters and teachers come to learn more about leaders' projects, can ask questions, and can even agree on some kind of cooperation. I agree that this format is absolutely different from mails that are sent in large numbers these days. The regions do not always competently work with them – sometimes, their replies are a mere runaround," General Director of the ASI emphasized. "We have recently started to hold district meetings at the offices of Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoys; governors begin to realize the profile of our activities and see opportunities to achieve their tasks through projects submitted to the Agency. Let us design such a regular format for various tracks."
Director of the Childhood Keepers Foundation Anna Kochineva who implements a project for the professional orientation of orphaned children and vulnerable groups of teenagers asked not to divide participants by the ASI's areas of activities, but rather form cross-sectoral teams.
"My colleagues who also work with teenagers have made a good proposal to create a cross-sectoral partnership by project subjects, rather than divide it by directions: educational, social, etc. We ourselves do not know who we are now – we are an education project, a social project, and a technology project at the same time. We are somewhere in between, and this is quite a common situation. The idea to join our resources and capabilities by subjects and present them to the region as part of a common cluster where each is responsible for a specific unit, the idea to implement something common together, was right on the tip of my tongue. We are ready to take part in this," Anna Kochineva said.
