VIII Industry Professional Skills Championship AtomSkills-2023 is over

image

The closing ceremony of the VIII Rosatom Industry Professional Skills Championship AtomSkills-2023 took place in Ekaterinburg on June 21. In 2023, the championship has taken on a new international magnitude and quality. It gathered about 2,000 participants from Russia, Belarus, Turkey, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Bolivia, and India.

A total of 1732 professionals took part in the competitive part of AtomSkills: nuclear industry workers, students from 22 educational institutions, and teams from major Russian industrial companies, including Russian Railways, SIBUR, Gazprom Neft, EVRAZ, Gazprom, Roscosmos, Belarusian NPP, etc. The competitors demonstrated their skills in 40 competencies, including a special new nomination for university students "Technological Breakthrough: Quantum Technologies". "Mathematical Modeling" has become a completely new competence this year.




Awarding Ceremony

For the first time at AtomSkills-2023, representatives of 16 competences united to create a single product – a low-capacity wind power plant with energy storage and an innovative SmartGrid control system – within a few days of the championship. The work was done in between competitions, and the result was presented at the closing ceremony. The application of Rosatom Production System tools and digitalization throughout the entire life cycle using domestic IT solutions made it possible to develop and produce the new product within such a short period. The very idea of uniting AtomSkills professionals into a single team to produce a real product was born when Alexey Likhachev, Director General of Rosatom, made a tour of the site in 2022.

«AtomSkills is a huge value and our asset, Alexey Likhachev believes. - Today it has two dimensions. The first one is industrial. Nuclear experts compete with each other in a range of competencies and show each year who is the best in the occupation. This is truly the largest corporate professional skills championship in the world. The second dimension is international one, and now its development has been given a special impetus by order of the President of the Russian Federation. For obvious reasons we have suspended work on participation in the WorldSkills movement, so we need to make an even better international championship here in Russia and involve the maximum number of friendly countries. AtomSkills has become a platform for working out approaches to the creation of such a championship, and for attracting foreign partners to implement Russian projects abroad».

The championship business program was dedicated to the topic «Human Capital Assets: Tasks and Prospects of Human Resource Ecosystem Development». It brought together the major participants in the ecosystem of discovering Rosatom's human resource potential: from schoolchildren, students, their teachers and parents to industry leaders and experts, and representatives of authorities.

The session «Development of Human Resource Potential of Industrial Cities» was attended by Tatiana Terentieva, Deputy Director General for Human Resources of Rosatom; Alexander Bugaev, First Deputy Minister of Education of the Russian Federation; Robert Urazov, Director General of the Union «Agency for Development of Professional Communities and Workers»; Elena Vesna, Vice-President of National Research Nuclear University MEPhI; and Sonya Pogosyan, Deputy Board Chairman of the Russian Movement of Children and Youth «The Movement of the First»; and other speakers. Yulia Uzhakina, General Director of the Rosatom Corporate Academy, was the moderator. «Today the deficit of qualified personnel in the labor market is 5%, and according to forecasts, by 2030 this figure will reach 25%,» said Tatiana Terentieva. - In this situation, the major players need not to tempt people over by raising salaries, but to unite to solve common problems. The «Professionality» federal project for college students can be a good platform for developing joint solutions. I suggest organizing a panel to discuss the best mechanisms for training, attracting and retaining staff.» In addition, Tatiana Terentieva proposed to introduce lean production and Karakuri tools in schools. According to the speaker, this will not only develop engineering thinking in children, but also instill in them a culture of thrifty attitude to any activity, teach them to achieve maximum results with minimum costs.

During the session, Rosatom shared its experience in training personnel for industry. «Our objective is not only to create an ecosystem of talent discovery, but also to ensure a seamless transition at all its stages: from schoolchildren and students to professionals,» said Yulia Uzhakina. – The problems we see today are common to all industrial facilities. Only 14% of schoolchildren choose physics to pass the Unified State Examination and Basic State Examination, and only 15% are involved in engineering creativity. There is also a shortage of teachers under 35 years old and, in general, of teachers of major subjects in the cities. To address these challenges, we use additional tools that strengthen the educational system: «Mission: Talents», «Teacher for Rosatom», «Parents' League», «Council of Educators», «Council of Juniors», «Professionality» and others.»

An open dialogue between Rosatom's management and future and current employees of the industry has become an important part of the business program of the AtomSkills Championship. More than 90 representatives of the Rosatom Juniors movement presented their implemented initiatives to Alexey Likhachev, Head of Rosatom. These include the Reshatom online marathon, the Atlas of Professions, and the Atomstory quest through nuclear cities. Young people also shared how the work of Junior Councils is organized in nuclear cities and gave Rosatom executives a tour of the specially prepared track «VECtor of Discoveries», where one can learn more about the history of nuclear industry, outstanding scientists and their discoveries, get acquainted with promising developments in the field of modern IT technologies and take part in master classes.

About 30 students of colleges and universities in their turn presented to Alexey Likhachev projects on vocational guidance of schoolchildren. Young people hold Olympiads for schoolchildren, organize meetings to tell them about the advantages of studying at colleges participating in the Professionality project, and promote science through lectures and quizzes.

AtomSkills experts also presented a report on their work to the top management of the industry. They give technology lessons to schoolchildren according to proprietary methodology, train highly qualified welders under the unique Nuclear Welding School program under the auspices of colleges, and improve safety culture on road transport.

A conference for teachers and parents «Green Pen» was organized as part of «Teacher for Rosatom», which was attended by more than 100 people, including members of the Rosatom Council of Educators. During the event, 16 projects aimed at improving the school education system were presented. These are initiatives to create a space for informal communication between children, teachers and parents, as well as for their joint activities, to develop an online platform to help schoolchildren participate in Olympiads, and universities and employers to attract talented children, to support young teachers without teacher training background, and many others.

AtomSkills also featured a BarCamp of management teams from the program «Mission: Talents» aimed at developing human resources potential in the territories where Rosatom operates. Its participants identified problems in the cities' education system and shared practices to address them. These include regular «atomic hour» in schools, individual support for students before employment, organization of engineering shifts for schoolchildren, career guidance tests for parents, and meetings between young people and veterans. Following the discussion, directors of industry enterprises will choose the best solutions that will contribute to the development of the territories.

Another focus of the discussion was the implementation of the «Professionality» federal project in the nuclear industry, which should bring the knowledge and skills of college graduates as close as possible to the requirements of Rosatom enterprises. The project session «Tactics for Deploying Professionality» was attended by about 40 colleges and industry businesses already in the project, and those who have applied to participate. Priority tasks voiced by the session participants include increasing the attractiveness of trade jobs, building an effective mentoring system at all stages of work with students and graduates, and attracting underage college graduates into the industry.

The bright event of the program was the final stage of the III family festival of engineering creativity «KarKURAZH». Schoolchildren, college students and their parents could try themselves as inventors and innovators and create Karakuri mechanical devices to optimize production processes. In 2023, 103 teams participated, including representatives from Egypt, Hungary, and the 28th nuclear city, Energodar. 10 families from 9 cities of Russia, who showed the best result at the remote stage, met in the final.

A number of agreements were also signed at AtomSkills. One of them was granted an international status: Rosatom Corporate Academy and the Republican Institute of Vocational Education of the Republic of Belarus agreed on cooperation and interaction. The contract provides for the development and updating of educational programs and educational and methodological aids for the training of young specialists in secondary vocational and specialized secondary education. Rosatom Corporate Academy has also concluded agreements with four educational institutions to grant them the status of «Nuclear School of Welding». In addition, Rosatom Corporate Academy and the Union of Employers of Nuclear Industry, Energy and Science of Russia signed an agreement allowing the championship participants to obtain a state certificate confirming their level of qualification in the «Engineering Design» competence. Another cooperation agreement was concluded by the Corporate Academy with the Obninsk Administration and the secondary educational school «Time, Go Ahead!». The first joint project of the parties will be Engineering 5th Grade, which will start at the school in September.

AtomSkills-2023 has become a platform for demonstrating technical achievements of the industry. For example, Atomenergoremont JSC presented a unique VR simulator for production personnel training at the championship. In a virtual environment, it simulates emergency situations and helps to practice actions without risk of injury.

At the end of AtomSkills, an award ceremony was held. A complete list with the names of winners is available at www.atomskills.ru

Background:

AtomSkills is an annual industry championship of nuclear industry workers and engineering occupations, Russia's largest industry championship of professional skills. The organizer is Rosatom. The Championship unites all professional skills contests held in the nuclear industry into a unified system for training and assessing the professionalism of employees in Rosatom's key occupations that ensure sustainable development and achievement of Rosatom's strategic goals. Selection for the AtomSkills championship takes place in many divisions of Rosatom (mechanical engineering, mining and a number of others), as well as in Rosatom's main backbone university, National Nuclear Research University MEPhI. It has been held since 2016. Since then, the number of competencies has grown from 10 to 40 and the number of participants from 450 to 2,000 specialists and experts. Within the professional community, participation in a championship of such level is an important factor of positioning of a specialist, which brings additional career opportunities.

The Government of the Russian Federation and major Russian companies continue to expand the range of solutions for unlocking the potential of young employees. Rosatom and its enterprises implement internship and apprenticeship programs for students with subsequent employment, and develop mentoring. Young specialists get new useful skills that help them in the career growth.