“If you are now choosing IT sphere, our Russian companies have a high demand for such specialists,” said Roman Chukov, Russian representative to MAG of Internet Governance Forum under UN auspices in a discussion on career development. He noted that due to the pandemic and the development of technologies all the necessary skills can be obtained on the Internet. And not only education. “If you visit the UN careers website now, you’ll notice that many of vacancies have a remote working option. So, you don’t need to go anywhere, stay at home and at the same time be an employee of such an international organization as the UN. This opens up completely new career opportunities that we were deprived of just a few years ago”, he said, citing as an example the prospects that are opening up for young people due to such a rapid development of the IT sector. However, he also advised young people, regardless of their specialty, to continue developing their IT skills, because without the basics of working with personal computer and professional knowledge of Microsoft Office, for example, the career can’t go far neither in the public service nor in the private sector.
Roman Chukov also mentioned the necessity of networking for job search and internships. “Center for Global IT-Cooperation, together with the Coordination Center for TLD ru/рф and other partners, held the First Youth Russian Internet Governance Forum under the auspices of the United Nations in April. We had a section on the digital economy, where we discussed career prospects for IT professionals in Russia. At this and other sections, the participants were able to find internships for themselves, simply by talking to the speakers after the session. So, you just need to find opportunities and use them”, he concluded.
The topic of opportunities for youth was also raised in the section “What education does the digital economy require today?”, where Youth Digital Ombudsperson Dmitry Gulyaev spoke. He said that currently there is still a problem with the brain drain of IT specialists. “This can be prevented if we actively support start-ups, science and, together with business, develop more educational programmes or modules at universities. In addition, a positive image of a scientist and IT worker should be created in the information environment among young people. For this, among other things, the office of the Youth Digital Ombudsperson was created”, Gulyaev explained.
As part of the event, the “Al-business slam” section was also attended by the Center's expert in the field of artificial intelligence Anna Abramova. During discussion at the festival, she advised young people who are planning to create an artificial intelligence startup with access to the international level to look at what is happening on the sites of the OECD, the Council of Europe and the WTO. The World Trade Organization, of which Russia is a member, is already preparing an agreement in the field of digital commerce, where there are aspects related to data transfer and regulation of digital platforms.
The Digital Ball has been held for several years now and is the winner of the National competition of youth projects of the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Rosmolodezh) and is supported by the Association for the Development of Financial Literacy and NUST MISIS.
