On 24 March, a big event for school and university students and graduates took place in the Cultural Centre “Oktyabr” in Dubna. For the third time, the Forum #ProfessionsoftheFuture gathered experts in various professions to speak about the skills and competencies that will be relevant in the near future. The event was marked by traditional participation of JINR.

On Sunday morning, on the left bank of the Volga river, many residents and guests of Dubna were filling in registration badges to become a part of the event that was supposed to be attended by about 1000 people.

The first expert of the programme was Ilya Shirikov, electronic systems engineer in the NICA project at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Being in love with his profession, the speaker started with the phrase “I myself once had to make this choice…”. As he later admitted in an interview (to the JINR UC representatives), he would not change his way. The profession of an engineer is exciting and prestigious, the speaker mentioned. And there is a good reason. Right now, the Institute is extremely interested in employing young engineers. Therefore, the main goal of the speaker was to introduce to the listeners this profession.

In his presentation on the stage, Ilya told about the NICA complex, its scale today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. He reported on the technologies coming from Big Science to our everyday life, current developments made by engineers, and the tendencies for the next 20-30 years.

The talk was concluded with awarding a souvenir for the best question from the audience. The young student was interested in the modern synchronization system based on the White Rabbit technology. We hope that in the future this interest will get stronger and lead this young man to Big Science, just like Ilya’s speech led all those interested to the JINR exhibition stand presented jointly with the stand of the Dubna University. At the stands, the representatives gave detailed information about the School of Engineering, a joint project of JINR and the University, showed and explained what JINR engineers do.

The VBLHEP staff members created an interactive space: everyone interested could examine the electronic modules of the NICA accelerator complex and test the training platforms developed at VBLHEP by students of the JINR-based Department of Electronics, Dubna University. Nearby, the staff members of the JINR University Centre (JINR UC) explained how to start a career in science at the Institute and provided information materials about the Physics and Mathematics Open Classroom, student programmes and practices, as well as other opportunities of training at JINR.

The older generation was also interested. People came along with their grandchildren. While the youngers were pulling the levers on the circuit boards, the older ones listened to the VBLHEP representatives about the modern technologies, smiled, marvelled, took the “road map of JINR future specialist”. Maybe soon, thanks to JINR participation in the Forum “Professions of the Future”, many new talented engineers will come to the Institute.

The JINR working group at the Forum was represented by A. Suschevich, O. Radosteva, E. Loboda, D. Ponkin, I. Shirikov.

Eugenia Loboda,
Social Communications group, JINR University Centre