Society

Animation artists Katya Mikheeva, Yulia Kulikova, and Ekaterina Zhuzhleva (Design, ‘20) created animated video clips outlining cinema patron rules for Moskino, an organization that manages 14 cinemas in Moscow. Yulia Kulikova and Katya Mikheeva spoke with the HSE News Service spoke about their artistic choices and what drew them to animation.

Maria Melnikova, a graduate of the HSE Vysokovsky Graduate School of Urbanism Master’s programme inUrban Development and Spatial Planning, has written a book entitled Not Just Prefabs: The German Experience of Working with Mass Housing Neighbourhoods. She describes how Germany investigates and solves problems of housing in the city suburbs. Maria spoke with the HSE News Service about her interest in this topic, what she thinks about urban renewal and what she does in Berlin.

When Roman Stupin decided to go back to school after a decade of teaching and working with innovative startups, he chose HSE. That path started with continuing education programmes, then a Master’s degree and now postgraduate studies. 'I can't deny myself the pleasure of studying,' Mr Stupin admits. Here, he tells Success Builder how robotics can change education, what occupies specialists in Russian think tanks and why it’s time to replace government officials with algorithms.

Alexander Aksakov, who graduated from ICEF in 2011, now works as a Senior Associate in the New York office of Credit Suisse. He tells Success Builder how the wedding of an ICEF graduate became a gathering of economists from around the world, how U.S. employers recruit candidates in bars and how to earn an MBA from one of the world’s most prestigious schools.

Verisium project founder Vadim Kostomarov is convinced that traditional banks will disappear in the new digital world. Financiers, however, will not be left without work, he adds reassuringly. HSE graduate Vadim Kostomarov tells Success Builder whether people should be divided into ‘techies’ and ‘humanities types,’ how to survive in the fashion industry and consulting, and talk about mistakes in looking for investors, and managing a ‘teal’ company.

China was the first country to be hit by the coronavirus, and other countries have looked to its handling of the outbreak as a model. Former HSE student Sergey Stepanov, who has been studying and working in China for the past four years, shared his personal experience with the COVID-19 outbreak while in China.

Alexandra Gudimova, graduate of the WEaIA Faculty, decided to study at HSE University because of an injury. She had to leave choreography academy, forget about ballet and the Bolshoi Theater, and restart her life from scratch. Now she heads a thriving business whose success attests to her professionalism. In this instalment of Success Builder, Ms Gudimova talks about how to write a graduate thesis about a family business, ride the snacking wave and create fast food for city dwellers.

Unexpectedly, one of last year’s trends was…mushrooms. Several startups have shown that mycelium is a suitable material for eco-friendly fabrics, fashionable foods and the manufacture of drugs to treat clinical depression. ‘Prototyping Future Cities’ Master’s Programme graduate Anna Budnikova took the mushroom trend one step further by inventing a building material she calls ‘mycokarst’. She tells Success Builder what the difference is between eco- and bio-materials, why to make water from air and design ‘passive homes’, and who urbanists are and how they are changing our cities.

Ksenia Totmyanina, graduate of the HSE University Faculty of Economic Science and the current Managing Director of the Sberbank Data Research Competency Development Center, talks about the importance of case studies for students, what it feels like to be a ‘woman in IT’ and why the people at Sberbank are not afraid that artificial intelligence will replace humans.

Maxim Oreshkin, Russia’s former Minister of Economic Development, was appointed Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation, following Vladimir Putin's decree of January 24.