Society

Urban studies is a new field of study for Russia that is devoted to the sustainable development and use of city space. As part of the Success Builder project, Egor Korobeynikov, who is the creator of UrbanUrban and an HSE alumnus, talks about how he turned into an urbanist from a bank teller, and also about why Moscow should not be made into Europe and what officials need to be told.

January 28 saw the launch of a Kickstarter project developed by graduates from the HSE’s International College of Economics and Finance (ICEF).

In November, Ilya Azar, a journalist and graduate of the Higher School of Economics, won the HSE Alumni Awards in the category ‘Fourth Estate’. In this edition of Success Builder, Ilya speaks about how to get a job in the media, what journalistic ethics are, and how to survive in the hot spots without body armour.

A great idea is not enough for a startup; you have to be persistent in your search for investors, never give up, and find talented engineers ready to solve random technical issues for the sake of an ‘idea.’ Grachik Adjamyan, who is a graduate of the Moscow State Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (MIEM) and the creator of the projects Budist.ru and Wakie.com, tells Success Builder how he overcame a number of hurdles in building his startup and headed to Silicon Valley to find investors.

According to Maxim Chernin, director of Sberbank Insurance and HSE graduate, you need to be a good psychologist when proposing life insurance to a client. He tells us what it's like to work in the business of 'human life', whether creativity has any place in insurance work and how to inculcate a culture of medical check-ups.

In November 2014 the film 'The Son' about the problems of choice in a typical life and death existential situation went on general release in Russia. It is independent filmmaker Arseny Gonchukov’s third full-length feature film. In the 'Success Builder' series he talks about how to shoot and promote auteur cinema on a minimal budget and win film festival prizes.

'Success Builder' is a section about what happens with HSE alumni after graduate — how they build their careers, how they gain recognition in their field, how they handle failure. Katya Bermant, HSE graduate, is working to develop the charity industry in Russia by using Western models and adapting them to the Russian context. She gives lectures, teaches specialist classes, conducts educational activities, and invents and implements creative fundraising methods.

Alexei Repik, who received his bachelor’s degree from HSE’s Faculty of Economics, was named the winner of the Russia nomination in the international competition Entrepreneur of the Year 2014. Repik is the President of Delovaya Rossiya (Business Russia) and the Chairman of the board of directors at the R-Pharm group.

On November 18 the HSE Alumni Awards ceremony took place in Izvestia Hall.

'Success Builder' is a section about what happens with HSE alumni after graduate — how they build their careers, how they gain recognition in their field, how they handle failure. The first article is about Dmitry Levitsky, who graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the Higher School of Economics in 1999. He is the co-owner and manager of several chains of bars called ‘Honey, I'll call you back’ and ‘Dolls Pistols’, as well as the co-owner and CEO of Hurma Management Group.