The future of engineering professions is shifting from hard skills to soft skills. Engineers of the future should have entrepreneurial competencies on top of mobility — Nenad Popovic, Minister for Innovation and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia.

The younger generation will not go for an office job – this is a dated model. Those who were born after 2000 will give the system a boost — Simon Bartley, President, WorldSkills International.

The motto is ‘Addressing the Person’: building a system around the person, their talents, practical skills and ability to be agile and adapt to the labour market. It results in a person-oriented model for preparing human resources — Alexey Likhachev, Chief Executive Officer, State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM.

When we address human-centeredness, we should not forget that it is not just a person we work with – it is a whole family. We endorse relocation of whole families; we help with employment for their children; together with initiating investment programmes, we call on regional authorities to develop kindergartens and schools; we prepare a comfortable social infrastructure for people — Mikhail Karisalov, Chairman of the Management Board, Chief Executive Officer, SIBUR .

In today’s world, we need to change the management paradigm. Industry-specific expertise is not as important for top management anymore as the human environment and the ecosystem around. CEOs of large corporations spend 90% of their time on developing ecosystems and relations — Kirill Kravchenko, Member of the Management Board and Deputy Cheif Executive Officer, Gazprom Neft .

Lately, our education has been operating as a conveyor belt, while there is a demand for handmade, which is usually more expensive than mass-made and shows a different productivity — Mikhail Kotyukov, Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.

None of the existing education programmes provides project experience, or multiplicative and multicultural competencies, or skills required for digital economy — Svetlana Chupsheva, Chief Executive Officer, Agency for Strategic Initiatives.

We need to make the most advanced [education and retraining, – Ed.] programmes available outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg universities – in regions, so that people do not have to go the capitals or abroad to get world-level education — Mikhail Kotyukov, Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.

We want to get rid of inequality in education. It should be technology-based and human-centered development — Natalie Kyriacou, Founder, Chief Executive Officer, My Green World.

In our set of values, we have replaced competition with cooperation. We need to create an involving environment; competent area managers are not enough; we need to involve employees in company development. We have changed assessments and motivations in our KPI, which was previously based on individual performance. Now team result is valued more — Kirill Kravchenko, Member of the Management Board and Deputy Cheif Executive Officer, Gazprom Neft .

We have built several facilities that rank among the biggest in the world; we have given people opportunities for professional growth. Professions change. We have enjoyed a corporate university for ten years – it upgrades skills, [helps us forecast, – Ed.] whether people will be demanded in our company in three years — Mikhail Karisalov, Chairman of the Management Board, Chief Executive Officer, SIBUR .

Over the last years, education policy in Russia has seen modernization and a breakthrough. There are huge achievements — Peter Altmaier, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Being smart means to know how to apply the knowledge you got, and our education has been giving more of that — Mikhail Karisalov, Chairman of the Management Board, Chief Executive Officer, SIBUR .

We support education projects that promote skills of the future; we are creating a foundation to finance these projects. Together with the Ministry of Science, we are launching a project called ‘100 universities’, where 100 universities of our country will go through an intensive programme on digital economy and skills of the future — Svetlana Chupsheva, Chief Executive Officer, Agency for Strategic Initiatives.

Everyone has heard about Germany’s dual education model [educational facilities provide theory, while employers provide practical skills, – Ed.]. Students that went through training based on this model are likely to find a job in Germany or anywhere in the world — Peter Altmaier, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Universities should become innovation centres, technology parks, start-up centres and platforms for open knowledge, where people use the same ecosystem to share knowledge — Nenad Popovic, Minister for Innovation and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia.

Learning languages is impossible without technology. We need a more active use of technology — Peter Burman, President for Corporate Language Learning Solutions, EF Education First.