The project is taking place online, from December 3 to 11.
Top 50 graduates of the Virtual Academy from 31 universities, representing 11 countries, are taking part in the annual international student event – the Youth Day 2020.
In 2020, the Youth Day is taking place for the sixth time, but it’s the first time that it is organized online. The Higher Economic School of UNECON is traditionally the organizer of this project. The event has held been holding the status of the working project of the International Business Congress since 2016. Financial, organizational, and expert support is provided by many energy companies and partner organizations, including Gazprom, Uniper SE, Wintershall Dea, Gasunie, OMV AG, Energy Delta Institute, Royal Dutch Shell plc and others. One of the main objectives of the project is to attract talented students to the energy sector and to transfer experience and knowledge from the industry leaders to the new generation.
Special attention was paid to education of the participants. To ensure their training, an educational program “Energy 2020: Back to the Future” has been launched within the Virtual Academy. For 3 months, the participants studied analytical and video materials, took part in 18 webinars arranged by partner companies, completed different tasks, and in the end they managed to prepare and present their own research projects.
In total, about 500 entries for participation in the project were submitted this year. 270 students from 75 universities, representing 22 countries of the world, were enrolled at the Virtual Academy. Results of studying in the Academy were used to select top 50 participants that were to take part in the Youth Day.
The activities of the Youth Day are taking place from December 3 to 11. Right after the Opening Ceremony, all the participants have been separated into five teams of 10 people each. Every team has one week to complete a business case – “Subsoil Energy: Back to the Future.” On December 10, students will present their solutions to the expert jury, comprising representatives of the partner companies that power the event.
The main case of the project and the year in general will be the Meeting with Top Managers of Energy Companies – “Leadership in the time of crisis,” scheduled for December 11. Senior executive managers of companies including Gazprom, Wintershall Dea GmbH, Uniper SE, N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie, OMV AG, and Royal Dutch Shell plc will share with the participants their personal and corporate experience, as well as the vision of strategic development of the industry. The event is expected to be opened by Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Management Committee of Gazprom.
“Our team took a lot of effort to make online activities of the Youth Day as intensive and useful for your professional and personal development as before,” Igor Maksimtsev, Provost of UNECON addressed the participants of the Youth Day at the Opening Ceremony on December 3. “There is no doubt that online interaction cannot substitute offline communication, but you personally should see to how fruitfully you use the new formats of interaction with your peers, as well as with experts and company leaders. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the participants of the Youth Day once again. We thank the students for their engagement and hard work, our permanent partners – for their support and eagerness to share their knowledge and experience with the new generation, and the arrangement team – for continuous development and improvement of the project no matter how uncertain the circumstances are.”