St. Petersburg Hosts Youth for Sustainable Development Session

Saint Petersburg State University hosted the practical session of the Youth for Sustainable Development platform with the participation of ACIG Group experts on 13 to 14 March 2015. It was organized by ACIG and RANEPA. Unilever is the general partner of the event.

The platform was presented and its participants were selected at the event. Students presented their research projects on three topics, namely, PR for territories and creation and development of images and brands of Russian regions and cities (proposed by ACIG), Changing Consumer Culture in Russia and Transition to Sustainable Consumption (by Unilever), Civil Society in Independent Evaluation of Social Services Efficiency (proposed by RANEPA).

Aleksey Shipov, Member of the Board of ACIG and Managing Director of the platform; Anton Chuklin, Member of the Supervisory Board of ACIG and Deputy Executive Director of the Association of Innovative Regions of Russia; Tatyana Pavilova, Director of the Department for HR Consulting; and Dmitry Mikhailov, Director for Marketing at ACIG, were on the expert board.

The experts assessed the projects based on the following criteria: importance of the project for the modern society, determination of fields of application and major aspects of the problem, ingenuity and novelty of approach to handling the specified issues. Upon completion of the session, the participants to continue their projects at the Young Professionals for Sustainable Future of Russia contest were selected.

“This was the first time we have run the selection session in St. Petersburg, which is definitely a positive experience for us as we got an opportunity to tell students from St. Petersburg about the platform,” Ms. Pavilova said.

Besides the preliminary round of the contest, some other activities were held there, specifically, Unilever experts presented their lectures on the first day: Elena Pavlova, a personnel hiring and training professional, and Sergey Parshin, Managing Director of Unilever production cluster in St. Petersburg, talked about their internship conditions and possible employment through Unilever Future Leaders Program. Session participants were also offered to play a business game based on Kin-dza-dza! movie.

“An event like that should be of interest for students. This way, they get an opportunity to achieve their ambitions, make necessary contacts and find their like-minded fellows,” Mr. Mikhailov said.

Sustainable Future of Russia platform for young professionals is a community of talented young professionals of Russia possessing progressive ideas, having a desire to develop and to unlock their potential. Young Professionals for Sustainable Future of Russia contest is the core activity of the platform.

Platform website: www.future-rf.ru