Author: Mikko Pajula

After careful consideration of the 4th project session results and having evaluated the teams’ performance, the jury conlcluded that CONTEXTRA case team should be receiving the «Best case solution» award! The team updated the media looks of the company, suggested promotion activities and conducted a market research. It is especially pleasant to know that the case company representative, Mikhail Glushanok, was a student in our previous Murmansk project session thus promoting continuity of the project results as well as empowering the youth of the Northern regions. Congratulations to the whole team (Anastasia Pozdnyakova, Karina Astakhova, Elena Morozova, Nikita Gamza, Sudhan Anantha Padmanaban) and coaches (Oksana Prokhorova and Teresa Chen)!

Translated from: https://petrsu.ru/news/2020/90460/onlain–final-tchetv#t20c

As part of the development of the flagship university of PetrSU and the international project ENI KO1013 “BRIDGE – The Barents Region Initiative for the Development of Economic Growth and Promotion of Employment”, was held. The final video conference of the 4^th session of the BRIDGE project, organized by PetrSU, where the results of solving 10 business cases for Karelian enterprises were presented.

On November 16, 2020, the final presentations of the 4^th online session of the international educational project BRIDGE, included in the CBC Kolarctic 2014-2020 cross-border cooperation program, took place. Representatives of 5 partner universities participated in the videoconference: The Arctic University of Norway (lead partner), Lapland University of Applied Sciences (Finland), Murmansk Arctic State University, ITMO University (St. Petersburg) and Petrozavodsk State University.

More than 70 people (including 29 foreign) took part in online presentations, including representatives of small business in Petrozavodsk. PetrSU was represented by 11 3^rd and 4^th year bachelor students from the Institute of Economics and Law in Economics and Management: Elizaveta Martynova, Elena Zaitseva, Thomas Scheiter, Ivan Zharinov, Karina Astakhova, Anastasia Pozdnyakova, Taras Tikhiy, Arman Bagratyan, Daria Kuzmina, Ekaterina Grigorieva, Rafael Mulenga. The head of the group is Oksana Prokhorova, Associate Professor of the Department of Economic Theory and Management. In total, 10 cases of Karelian companies were presented in the project: Pro: motion SMM agency, Lokki film production project, Holod Slavmo CJSC, Piter Inn hotel, Mama-Karelia LLC, marketing agencies Loyal and Contextra, Trade House Yarmarka, the cleaning company Clean world LLC, the Interior Design Center LLC and the Karelian Design interior showroom.

On behalf of the directorship of PetrSU, M.S. Gvozdeva, Vice-Rector for International Affairs of PetrSU, addressed the participants with a welcoming speech.

Marina Stanislavovna wished the project success, highlighting its prospects and flexibility in the changing conditions.

Online format of the presentations allowed the students, together with their coaches, to present the result of their 9-week work, and the project coaches to evaluate the solution of business cases from Petrozavodsk companies, representing mainly small businesses. As a result, practical solutions were presented for the development of such areas of activities as: digital marketing, food production, hospitality, cleaning, interior design and decor, international film production.

Thanks to all commissioners of the 4^th session of the BRIDGE project, who were always open for interaction with international teams of students, explained the specifics of their business, promptly gave feedback on ideas and solutions from teams, were mentors and authoritative experts,

thanked the organizers of the session.

The winner of the 4^th session of the BRIDGE project is the Сontextra team consisting of 5 students from: the Lapland University of Applied Sciences (Finland, Tornio), ITMO University and PetrSU (two 3rd year students of the IEL – team leader Anastasia Pozdnyakova and Karina Astakhova), coaches – Finnish lecturer of International Communications from Lapland UAS Teresa Chen and associate professor of the Department of Economic Theory and Management of PetrSU Oksana Nikolaevna Prokhorova, as well as Director of Contextra (4th year student of the Institute of Economics and Law of PetrSU) Mikhail Glushanok.

Mikhail Glushanok was the participant of the two sessions of the BRIDGE project:

Participation in the international project in different roles (the first time as a participant and the second time as a commissioner) was a very strong challenge for me. Communication and collaboration in English, working with people from different cultures, exploring European markets – it all looked very tempting! And after two victories in sessions with serious competition, I became convinced that my management model turned out to be more effective and “more human” than the models of other teams. Competition always brings out the best ideas and solutions. I have been working as a project manager for several years. I am always interested in taking on new problems of varying degrees of difficulty.

As the winner of the last session and the owner of the business, I wanted to bring something new to the project. This year we have introduced a system of mentors, when each of the participants worked directly with the head of each direction within the organization. Plus, last year I wanted to see more motivation and a constructive agenda from the commissioners themselves. This time I tried to give the guys what I was missing myself: attention, organization of a strategy, help with teaching materials, support and motivation. I was very lucky to work with such open and purposeful people as Nastya Pozdnyakova, Karina Astakhova, Dasha Savkova, Lena Morozova, Sudhan and Nikita Gamza. My best team! Plus, I had to deal with the development of my agency Contextra. We do a huge range of marketing services. The BRIDGE project helped us to start “packing” our agency, and the victory gave me and my guys a boost! Now we are ready for even greater challenges!

Mikhail Glushanok

The next, 5^th session of the BRIDGE project will be organized and hosted by the lead partner of the project, The Arctic University of Norway in Alta in March 2021. The online session of the BRIDGE project in Petrozavodsk demonstrated the special entrepreneurial spirit of the participants and once again confirmed the flexible approach and quick adaptation of the project to the current realities.

During the week 41 of 2020, the project successfully conducted the workshop week of the Petrozavodsk autumn 2020 session. The new session differs from the previous one in many ways. First of all, for the first time in the history of the project, the session is held completely online. It means, that all students and coaches meet each other and participate in the session online. As you might remember the last session was organized in a hybrid model, when Finnish and Norwegian participants were involved in the project remotely, but students and coaches from Russian partners gathered all together in Murmansk for the workshop session. But this autumn, restrictions caused by COVID, have not allowed the project to organize any face-to-face meetings. Therefore, the positive experience of the last session gives confidence in the successful implementation of the planned activities.

Another novelty of this session is a lengthy training session, “Creative Steps” which lasted for a few weeks. “Creative Steps” is a model of an innovation workshop designed by the experts from Lapland UAS Anitra Arkko-Saukkonen and Anželika Krastina. It is a guided step by step approach, which was already successfully used in different digital cross-border collaborations. The methodology’s aim in the BRIDGE project is to help the students in an innovation process during their work on business cases.

Anitra and Anzelika with the help of external experts Matthew Lynch and Anthony Okuogume have held four training sessions, during which they guided the teams through all 10 + 1 steps of the model, giving explanation, instructions and tasks for each step.

The usefulness of the training session was already appreciated by the participants “…it helped to understand the case, what to do, in which direction to move…”, “I really liked the step-by-step system of solutions. It is easy to understand and very useful”.

Another difference between the Petrozavodsk session and the previous ones is the commissioners. Ten commissioners are represented by companies of the Karelia regions from various fields of businesses: digital marketing, production companies, hospitality, cleaning, design, international filmmaking. Most of the entrepreneurs are young people under 25 years old. In fact, three of them are the PetrSU students, who participated in the Murmansk BRIDGE-project session as team members. BRIDGE-project is for young, talented, enterprising, innovative and active students!

A huge load of work has already been done by our participants, there is an equal amount of tasks to be accomplished ahead. The teams have still almost four weeks to work on the innovation and ideation process, to develop new business ideas and solutions, which will be finally presented on 16th November.

Translated from: https://petrsu.ru/news/2020/89052/tchetvertaya-sessiya

As part of the development of the flagship university of PetrSU and the International project ENI KO1013 “BRIGDE – Barents Region initiative for the Development of Economic Growth and Promotion of Employment” the 4^th online session of internships for students in solving business cases, organized by Petrozavodsk State University, is taking place from 5 to 9 of October.

From 5 to 9 October, the 4^th session of the international educational project BRIDGE: Barents Region Initiative for Developing Growth and Employability, in which more than 80 people take part: 56 students, 25 of them are Russian, 20 are foreign; 13 coaches, 5 of them are Russian, 8 Finnish and Norwegian, 7 people of administrative staff; 15 commissioners, as well as 4 invited experts of the Kolarctic CBC Program.

The three-years BRIDGE project is included in the CBC Kolarctic cross-border cooperation program 2014-2020. In addition to PetrSu, the BRIDGE project involves 4 partner universities: The Arctic University of Norway (lead partner), Lapland UAS (Finland), Murmansk Arctic State University and ITMO University (Saint-Petersburg). The objective of the 4^th session of the BRIDGE project is to develop students’ skills in international communication and increase their competitiveness by solving business cases from Karelian companies in international interdisciplinary teams.

Features of the 4^th round of the BRIDGE project in Petrozavodsk

Firstly, the 4^th round of the BRIDGE project in Petrozavodks is being held completely online for the first time, which made possible to keep the BRIDGE on schedule.

Secondly, at the BRIDGE session in Petrozavodsk from September 14 to October 5, 2020, the longest training session in the history of BRIDGE was implemented amounting to 12 academic hours, compared to 2-3 mini-lectures earlier. The training was prepared and conducted by our Finnish colleagues Anitra Arkko-Saukkonen and Anzelika Krastina, based on their methodological manual, “Creative Steps”. The training is aimed at uniting teams and helping them to start working together on cases.

Thirdly, during the online session in Petrozavodsk, MS Teams was the official platform for groups interaction. This platform was first used at the Murmansk session this spring. According to statistics, at the moment, the activity and involvement of using MS Teams in the Petrozavodsk session has already increased more than 3 times.

Fourthly, the online BRIDGE session, organized by PetrSU, was marked by increased interest from Kolarctic experts from regional branches in Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Norway, as well as the Regional Consul of Lapland Laura Mäki, who were invited to all session events on the General Channel in MS Teams.

”Тhank you for inviting me to follow your training and the presentations! Great job from organisers, teachers, experts, students, everyone. I am impressed by how you have been able to take up the work in variety of business spheres, operational environments, international teams… and online!

This kind of skills we need now and in the future! Enjoy the process, make friends and learn from each other! Thank you on behalf of the Programme Best wishes, Laura from Kolarctic CBC Managing Authority.”

Laura Mäki

Fifthly, one of the main features of the 4^th session in Petrozavodsk is commissioners or management of 10 Karelian companies, the cases of which are being solved by international teams of students: Pro:motion SMM agency, Lokki project, Holod Slavmo CJSC, Piten Inn hotel,  “Mama-Karelia” LLC, marketing agency Loyal, digital-agency Contextra, TD “Yarmarka”, “Clean World” LLC, “Interior Design Center” LLC and the interior showroom Karelian Design. These are the youngest company representatives in BRIDGE history. Their average age is 30 years. Moreover, more than 60% of them are under 25 years old. In the 4^th round of BRIDGE, 10 cases from existing small and medium enterprises in various fields of activity are presented: digital marketing, production companies, hotel business, cleaning, design, international film production.

Another unusual fact concerning Karelian commissioners is that three of them: Daria Feshkina (Pro:motion), Maxim Tkachenko (Clean World LLC) and Mikhail Glushanok (Contextra), are at the same time 4^th year undergraduate students of Economics of the Institute of Economics and Law of PetrSU, and participants of the previous BRIDGE session in Murmansk and commissioners of three cases of the Petrozavodsk session.

Eleven 3^rd and 4^th -year bachelor students of faculties of “Economics” and “Management” of the Institute of Economics and Law of PetrSu are recruited to solve the cases: Elizaveta Martynova, Elena Zaytseva, Thomas Shayter, Ivan Zharinov, Karina Astakhova, Anastasia Pozdnyakova, Taras Tikhy, Arman Bagratyan, Daria Kuzmina, Ekaterina Grigorieva, Rafael Mulenga. Students successfully passed two rounds of casting in English in order to be able freely communicate in international interdisciplinary groups while working on cases under the mentorship of Oksana Prokhorova, Associate Professor of the Department of Economic Theory and Management of the Institute of Economics and Economics of PetrSU.

During the week, the session participants have been meeting with companies’ representatives in order to develop a team solution. Based on the results of the session, the teams will submit interim presentation by 9^th October with an action plan for the next five weeks of online work. The final presentations will take place on 16^th November 2020 via videoconference.

September is on the calendar and it means that the new semester of the BRIDGE-project has started. On 14^th September students and coaches, as usual, gathered together in MS Teams to kick-off the Petrozavodsk session. Active and dynamic first day full of new information, instructions and tasks set the pace for the whole semester.

This time a workshop week will be held completely online, which is obvious in the current world situation. But this does not at all bother either the participants or the organizers of the project, since we had already successfully accomplished the previous semester despite all challenges and restrictions caused by the pandemic. Ahead, there will be few more days of training sessions for the participants, meeting with commissioners and intensive team work. Wish the teams good luck and stay updated!