SPbPU Hosts Inaugural Russian-African Online Experience Exchange Conference

On December 22, the first online conference on the exchange of experience of universities — members of the consortium «Russian-African Network University» (RAFU) in the implementation of projects for sustainable development of African countries «Contribution of Russian and African universities to sustainable development of regions» took place. More than 50 RAFU participants were present.

Alla Mazina, Deputy Head of the International Education Department of SPbPU, moderated the meeting.

The conference featured presentations by 13 representatives of the consortium participants, each of whom has their own experience of working with African countries in their specialties.

Elena Mishchenko, Vice Rector for International Affairs of Tambov State Technical University, spoke about the key factors in the development of environmental regional and global initiatives «Eco GREEN». The goal of the project is to form an international ecological center for sustainable development of the Tambov region economy on the basis of the university to improve the system of education in the field of ecology and rational nature management with the involvement of the best international practices.

Vera Zabotkina, Director of the Scientific and Educational Center for Cognitive Programs and Technologies of the Russian State University for the Humanities, noted that modern education should meet a certain set of requirements. It should be international, interdisciplinary, intersectoral, intergenerational — and the RAFU project corresponds to all this. The task of promoting the national interests of the Russian Federation in the global space implies the use of such an effective tool as network international educational projects.

Andrey Faerman, Head of the International Relations Department of the Kovalevsky Institute of Biology of the South Seas, presented the pilot project of Russian-Djiboutian experts «Atlas of promising places for aquaculture development in the Republic of Djibouti». The atlas was created to facilitate the organization of mariculture farms for the production of fish, shrimp and shellfish in Djibouti as sources of animal food for the population, to increase employment and income of people in coastal communities.

Pavel Gultyaev, Head of the International Cooperation Department of the Russian Biotechnology University, spoke about the launch of open education centers in Russian and Russian language training in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, as well as about the joint Center for Industrial Safety with universities in Zimbabwe.

Issa Togo, Associate Professor of the Graduate School of Hydraulic and Power Engineering of SPbPU, highlighted the practical experience of the University in the integrated use of water resources in the Republic of Mali. Viktor Krasnoshchekov, Director of the Higher School of International Educational Programs, touched upon the problems and prospects of promoting the Russian language in West Africa.

Mercy Joshua Mwakitalima, a Master’s degree student at LETI, St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University’s Faculty of Computer Science and Technology, presented a comparative analysis of machine learning algorithms for fraud detection using African systems as an example.

The first Russian-African conference has become a new platform for the development of RAFU activities. Such cross-university cooperation will have a real synergetic effect of improving the quality of our interaction. The participants of the consortium have found new areas of joint work that contribute to the promotion of Russian-African cooperation, summarized Maxim Zalyvsky, Head of the Project Office of the Russian-African Network University.