In an effort to reach out to the next generation of high-tech innovators in Russia, Microsoft Research, in cooperation with St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University and the Academic Physics and Technology University, hosted the Microsoft Data Structures and Algorithms School (MIDAS) in St. Petersburg this August.
Sixty-two students from across Russia, Ukraine and Belarus attended the weeklong seminar, which was led by prominent technology experts and researchers from Microsoft Research, Columbia and Princeton universities, AT&T Labs, and the University of Rome. This was the second year Microsoft Research ran a summer program in Russia, with the first being the Russian Summer School for High Performance and Parallel Computing, which the company organized last year in partnership the Moscow State University and the Program Systems Institute of the Russian Academy of Science.
MIDAS is a Golden Opportunity and New Area for Microsoft Research
In a Microsoft Research blog piece that described MIDAS’ “golden opportunity” in Russia, Andrew Goldberg, the school’s director and principal researcher at Microsoft Research, explained how the Microsoft MIDAS program is part of the company’s External Research activities in Russia, with other initiatives including collaborative research projects and internships for Russian students at Microsoft offices in Redmond and Cambridge.
According to Andrew Herbert, managing director of Microsoft Research Cambridge and Microsoft distinguished engineer, such outreach in Russia is a top priority for the company, with the school becoming an “important annual event” and Russia becoming “an important new area” for Microsoft Research. The program’s tuition is free for students.
In addition to creating a forum for learning and innovation, the school aims to create what Nikolay Pryanishnikov, president of Microsoft Russia, calls “e-society development” in Russia. Pryanishnikov said that such a “unique project” not only allows young specialists to work toward their professional goals, but it also develops a “science-ecosystem” that provides “valuable input” to meet the current market demand for skilled IT specialists in Russia. Russia’s ability to meet this demand is especially important now that the government is seeking to create its own high-tech research hub with the Skolkovo project.
One of the students who participated in this year’s program, Alexander Daynyak of Moscow State University, summed up the overall mission of the program by saying,
“We have common goals and tasks with the honored scientists here: to develop our Russian scientific platform and to develop a new vision of some aspects. It is a great atmosphere here, because we are united by this great idea.”
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