The 'Digital Economy' national program, being implemented in Russia as part of the May decrees, includes the 'Personnel for the Digital Economy' federal project, in which Rossotrudnichestvo is engaged. Head o the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation Eleanora Mitrofanova said that Rossotrudnichestvo, being engaged in recruiting students and all programs to disseminate and support the Russian language abroad, provides financial support to promote our interests through culture, education and new technologies, which is very important for strengthening international relations."
"Culture, education and new technologies have become the 'rally points' for our compatriots abroad and those who study Russian, Russian schools, etc. We intend to significantly increase the number and quality of ties between our compatriots and Russia's science and culture centers in these countries, with civil society institutions in Russia, as well as encourage talented young foreigners to study here and form a circle of Russia's friends," Mitrofanova said.
The goal of Rossotrudnichestvo within the framework of this program is to increase the level of digital literacy of compatriots, form conscious digital behavior and increase interest in programming, robotics and other promising areas, especially among young people, so that they can choose their specialties more consciously, in order to attract talented youth to study and work in these areas in Russia.
Speaking about the directions of this work, Mitrofanova named, in particular, the organization of advanced training for teachers at Russian schools abroad in skills set needed in the digital economy: "The teaching staff is becoming an important link between Russia, compatriots and foreign citizens. Teachers are directly involved in supporting and promoting both Russian culture and Russian education abroad."
The second direction is the holding of events to attract talented foreign citizens to study and work in Russia, as well as the dissemination of best practices for the development of digital literacy and in-depth study of programming and information technologies based on Russian schools abroad. "In this way we not only increase the level of training in these schools, but also make these schools more attractive for the local population," Mitrofanova believes.
The program will continue until 2021. The first-stage competitive selection has already been conducted. "According to the results of the competitive selection, which was attended by 97 specialized organizations, 27 grant scheme applies and 15 organizations were selected as winners, which plan to increase digital literacy among almost 50 thousand participants and over 5500 Russian teachers schools abroad by the end of the year. It's only this year. In total, events are planned in 37 countries, inducing face-to-face events in 19 countries," the head of Rossotrudnichestvo said.
According to her, Russian organizations offer modern creative solutions targeted at a specific age or profession based on digital products. "The events that will take place within two years will allow us to achieve the following indicators in 2021, at least we expect that we will reach these indicators: more than 130 educational programs which entered foreign markets; about 800 specialists invited to work in Russia; about 7500 high school graduates enrolling Russian universities in IT areas annually; more than 350 thousand people enrolled in digital literacy programs; more than 830 thousand foreign citizens directly involved in development of Russia's digital economy. This program should be designed for a longer period of time, until 2025, but after 2021 we will try to develop it further," Mitrofanova promised.
