Experts from the Graduate School of Management of St. Petersburg University (GSOM SPbU) Yury Yekimov and Ivan Bobrov took part in the Online Demo Day Digital University, organized by Mail.ru Group. The experts spoke about the benefits of deploying scalable IT services based on cloud technologies provided by Mail.ru.

“One of the strategic tasks of GSOM SPbU is the transformation of the Business School into a full-fledged digital environment, the transfer of the entire educational process to digital and the construction of additional services. To implement these ambitious plans, we cooperate with our long-term partner and member of GSOM Advisory Board, Mail.ru. If in 2020 we were just preparing for large-scale digitalization, in 2021 we are already seeing the results of a number of programs. ”

Yury Yekimov, IT Director of GSOM SPbU

In December 2020, GSOM SPbU received a grant from Mail.ru for cloud services to create a digital educational environment as part of the implementation of the Business School's development strategy until 2025. Cooperation with Mail.ru involves the introduction of digital products, including the creation of a corporate social infrastructure.

“When at the beginning of 2020 we faced the need to quickly switch to a distance learning format, at that time part of the work had already been done — teachers and students had already developed the habit of working online. Further, it became necessary to create a Learning Management System, Learning Records Store systems and organize digital laboratories, which are needed for students to work remotely. We decided: we will implement everything that is possible in the cloud - this turned out to be the most optimal option for us. For handling peak loads, the Mail.ru Group cloud solution turned out to be the most suitable for our tasks. Now, during peak downloads, we support up to 5 thousand listeners at the same time, and this is not the limit” 

Ivan Bobrov, GSOM SPbU expert

As part of the event, the directors for digital transformation of Russian universities shared their practical experience of digitalization using various services and platforms, the safe organization of working with data in the digital space and other projects. The discussion was attended by:

• Arthur Shchetinin, Mail.ru Cloud Solutions;
• Maxim Kholopov, Director of the Center for Information Technologies, Moscow State Medical University;
• Vitaly Aksenov, Head of the Algorithms for Concurrent and Distributed Systems laboratory, ITMO;
• Sergey Mardanov, Director of University Relations at Mail.ru Group, Deputy General Director of Digital Education JV (Spherum platform);
• Alexander Volkov, Vice-Rector for Education, NUST MISIS;
• Anton Zarubin, Vice-Rector for Digital Transformation, Bonch-Bruevich Saint Petersburg State University of Telecommunications.

The development of a digital educational environment is a strategic task of GSOM SPbU. The Business School plans not only to introduce an online component into educational programs, but also to create a full-fledged digital platform for education and communications integrated with St. Petersburg University, business partners and government agencies. For more information, please read an interview with Yury Yekimov, IT Director of GSOM SPbU.