Society news at HSE University

Maria Melnikova, a graduate of the HSE Vysokovsky Graduate School of Urbanism Master’s programme inUrban Development and Spatial Planning, has written a book entitled Not Just Prefabs: The German Experience of Working with Mass Housing Neighbourhoods. She describes how Germany investigates and solves problems of housing in the city suburbs. Maria spoke with the HSE News Service about her interest in this topic, what she thinks about urban renewal and what she does in Berlin.

On August 14, the ‘Thirty Three Characters’ project, which was created by the HSE University School of Art and Design in St. Petersburg in partnerships with the ARKI Creative Workshop, will open at the Manege Central Exhibition Hall in St. Petersburg. The project combines a series of outdoor installations dedicated to the Cyrillic alphabet.

When Roman Stupin decided to go back to school after a decade of teaching and working with innovative startups, he chose HSE. That path started with continuing education programmes, then a Master’s degree and now postgraduate studies. 'I can't deny myself the pleasure of studying,' Mr Stupin admits. Here, he tells Success Builder how robotics can change education, what occupies specialists in Russian think tanks and why it’s time to replace government officials with algorithms.

Alexander Aksakov, who graduated from ICEF in 2011, now works as a Senior Associate in the New York office of Credit Suisse. He tells Success Builder how the wedding of an ICEF graduate became a gathering of economists from around the world, how U.S. employers recruit candidates in bars and how to earn an MBA from one of the world’s most prestigious schools.

The bio-economy encompasses the production of renewable biological resources and their conversion into food, energy, goods, and services. Alexander Chulok, Head of the HSE ISSEK Centre of Scientific and Technological Forecasts, spoke to RBK and shared his predictions for the development of the bio-economy in the context of 13 global trends.

Verisium project founder Vadim Kostomarov is convinced that traditional banks will disappear in the new digital world. Financiers, however, will not be left without work, he adds reassuringly. HSE graduate Vadim Kostomarov tells Success Builder whether people should be divided into ‘techies’ and ‘humanities types,’ how to survive in the fashion industry and consulting, and talk about mistakes in looking for investors, and managing a ‘teal’ company.

China was the first country to be hit by the coronavirus, and other countries have looked to its handling of the outbreak as a model. Former HSE student Sergey Stepanov, who has been studying and working in China for the past four years, shared his personal experience with the COVID-19 outbreak while in China.

HSE experts participated in the first international online forum, ‘The World, Post-Coronavirus: A View from the Heart of Eurasia’, which was held on April 28 in Ufa on the initiative of the Bashkortostan government. Scholars, businessmen, and politicians from different countries discussed threats, opportunities, and solutions for the economy and the social sphere.