TSU students to protect business projects instead of theses

TOMSK, Jan 15 – RIA Tomsk. Students of Tomsk State University (TSU) will be able to go to the final certification not with theses, but with startups they created; the university intends to develop entrepreneurial thinking in student environment, the TSU Vice-Rector for Innovation Konstantin Belyakov told RIA Tomsk, without specifying when this practice would be introduced.

Earlier, "Izvestia" reported that in 2019 the Ministry of Education and Science suggested universities to actively engage in the practice of protecting business projects instead of theses.

"TSU is ready to accept start-ups of students of the university as theses, since the university is included in the "Entrepreneurial University" program and the introduction of the theses protection in the form of a startup – is one of the points of this program", – Belyakov reported.

As the Vice-Rector for IT Development Oleg Zmeev explained to the agency, in the near future, the Higher IT School (HITs) will launch an "Innovative Design" course dedicated to the preparation of start-ups. From February 2019, it will be passed by sophomores: 29 people in Russian, and 10 in English. The result will be the protection of IT-projects in front of potential investors.

“The goal of the course – is to dispel the myths that such (IT) companies are shrouded in. Both about the fact that they instantly “shoot” and that this is a hopeless business. We are confident that our students will receive job offers in startups, therefore, they should be able to not only design, but also evaluate them", – he said.

If, after the defense there is an investor ready to invest money in any project, then in the third and fourth courses, students who offered this project will have the opportunity to move to an innovative track, Zmeev added. The track will help them run their company while they are still studying.