HP’s Russian Institute of Technology (RIT) programme was launched just over a year ago and, in that short space of time, it has made significant progress. Not only has it helped Russia’s leading universities to develop unique IT education courses for more than 1,500 students but, with increased investment from HP, it has enabled Russia to clearly demonstrate good corporate citizenship to the world.
When the programme was launched in January 2008, just five universities signed agreements to participate. Since then, the RIT programme community has gained real momentum, providing 12 of Russia’s most distinguished universities with new hardware and software, IT educational courses with specific curricula and new technical departments that match worldwide standards in IT education.
The HP RIT programme was developed by HP Russia corporate affairs council and advisory board, implemented and run by Russian Open Innovation Office of HP Labs.
Armed to be professionals
The main goal of the RIT programme is to provide students and university professors with access to information on the latest technologies. HP provides hardware, software and financial support for universities looking to create RIT research and education centres within their facilities.
HP experts and university professors also work together to develop educational courses and to bring IT training programmes to new levels, enabling their students to become highly qualified IT professionals armed with the knowledge of the most recent technologies.
Collectively, the 12 participating universities now offer 22 education courses in IT. A total of eight laboratories have been developed and more than 40 university professors are now involved in the RIT programme. More universities are preparing to join the community throughout this year and plans are also underway to extend the RIT programme to Central and Eastern Europe.
Additional investment
The RIT programme was specifically developed to be aligned with Russia’s national priorities. Owen Kemp, managing director of HP Russia has said: “The unique nature of this programme and the growing interest of Russia’s leading universities has given HP considerable recognition. It has also brought RIT in line with our key educational and philanthropic initiatives.
"Despite these challenging economic times, we are giving the programme additional investment and shall be moving forward to continue its development.” That additional investment from HP comes in the form of equipment and course development grants for participating universities, with support from the HP Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Philanthropic and Corporate Affairs team.
Although the courses are currently only available in Russian, they will also be translated into English so that other European universities can add them to their own IT training programmes.
Creating innovations in education
HP’s RIT programme is part of a larger initiative set up by HP to engage thought leaders, educators and students in key markets and to create innovations between teaching, learning and technology.
The initiative, called the HP University Centre of Excellence (CoE) Concept, is a multi-year engagement with selected universities throughout Russia and EMEA that aims to address key societal and educational issues, to create a network of innovators in education and to develop sustainable innovations in teaching and learning.
When looking at how to assist the development of education in Russia, HP created the RIT programme within the CoE concept with three goals in mind:
• To close the IT skills gap for Russian engineering, mathematics and science students
• To enable close collaboration with the Ministry of Education and leading Russian universities
• To provide students and HP customers with access to HP technology
In the short space of just one year, the RIT programme has already provided considerable benefits to major educational establishments within Russia. It has gone a long way to engaging, collaborating and connecting the many members of the Russian IT community, with the promise of more to come.
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