Tucked 800 km away from Moscow is Russia's newest city Innopolis - on the shores of the Volga river - dubbed as a future world city.
Barely with a population of 4,000, the city - built in post Soviet-Russia - is inhabited mostly by techies, who innovate, research and do all sorts of IT experimentation, including driverless cars.
People here are connected through Telegram app and the city comprises Innopolis University shaped as a spacecraft, a technopark resembling a flying saucer and amenities like apartments, sports complex etc.
A visit to this unique city, facilitated by the organisers of recently concluded WorldSkills Kazan, gave an opportunity to media persons to witness a unique urban environment with a modern residential infrastructure, ecology, and wide opportunities in education.
Innopolis University offers round the clock classroom facilities to its students throughout the year, irrespective of rains or snowfall with connected dormitories and hostels.
Iouri Kotorov, Head of International Affairs Department, Professor of Practice in Business Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Innopolis University said: "The idea is to get the concentration of IT experts...We want experts from the whole planet to come here to work for IT. It is quite interesting... All education here is in English".
To get selected to the university, the selection criteria is tough as the aspirants have to go through a rigorous process, but once selected students get scholarship.
"This is some kind of the mission... Education is expensive.... We provide scholarships...All amenities are there. We have swimming pool, sports centre, indoor (and) outdoor activities. All appliances are there in apartments for stay and work here...The best thing here is students can get to study any time 24x7 all 365 days. They can get to the university any time as all dormitories are connected to the university," said Kotorov.
He said 80 per cent of the students, who get selected, stay in this unique city that was chosen as an ambitious project given its superb location.
"We are just six years old young and a very ambitious university," he said, adding "the location was chosen to grow in future...Telegram is very powerful tool here for communication but equal emphasis is on personal communication".
Asked whether the university had any programme in pipeline with India, Kotorov said: "Yes...students exchange programme is there for three months. We do have cooperation with India. There are some two or three universities".
He said that the university has partners across the globe - be it the US, Europe or Africa - and the Innopolis Special Economic Zone (SEZ) was established in the city to bring the largest and promising technology companies from all over the world to Innopolis.
The city, he said, plans to take its capacity to 1,50,000 in future. At present techies venture in the city in driverless cars as free taxis as an experiment.
Innopolis was built in 2015. On June 9, 2012 Dmitry Medvedev, the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, together with Rustam Minnikhanov, the President of the Republic of Tatarstan, and Nikolay Nikiforov, Minister of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation had laid a capsule with a message to future residents at the ground-breaking site of the construction.
The total area of Innopolis to be developed over various phases of settlement stands at 1,18,72 hectares.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
