HSE Graduate School of Business and Alfa-Bank Hold Summer School for Students from China
Twenty-seven students from Chinese universities took part in the international summer school ‘Digital Product Management’ organised by the HSE Graduate School of Business and Alfa-Bank. Over the course of a week, participants explored the Russian economy and business environment, learned about current technology trends, and worked through the key stages of digital product development step by step—from researching user needs and defining a problem to developing a prototype and presenting their final project.
The educational programme began at the HSE Graduate School of Business campus on Shabolovka. Here, students discussed Russian–Chinese business cooperation and the specifics of doing business in Russia, as well as the digital transformation of companies and technology trends. A separate session was devoted to business model design: participants examined the role of negotiations in developing business models and worked with Alexander Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas.
‘For us, the summer school is an opportunity to give students from China an inside look at Russian business: to introduce them to how companies operate, what technologies they use, and how new products are created. It is particularly interesting to see how participants with different educational and cultural backgrounds come together in teams, discuss ideas, and work towards concrete solutions. Projects like this provide a strong foundation for further dialogue and cooperation,’ said Ivan Prostakov, Deputy Director of the HSE Graduate School of Business.
At the Alfa Research Centre, theory was turned into hands-on product development. Together with experts from Alfa-Bank’s research centre, the students went through an accelerated digital product development cycle: they explored the user experience, defined problems, generated solutions, created prototypes, and tested them with users. This format gave participants an opportunity to try approaches used in the development of real digital products: making research-based decisions, rapidly turning ideas into prototypes, and refining them based on user feedback. The participants prepared user interviews, identified key problems, generated ideas, and selected the solutions with the greatest potential. The next step was prototyping: the teams turned their chosen concepts into test versions of products and tested them in practice.
The students then returned to the HSE Graduate School of Business to look at their solutions from a business perspective. Under the guidance of HSE Graduate School of Business professors Mikhail Komarov and Zeljko Tekic, they refined their value propositions, developed their business models, and prepared for the final project presentations. The project results were presented to an expert panel. At the end of the summer school, all students received certificates confirming their completion of the programme.
‘Projects like these are a good way to build bridges between cultures and different approaches to product development. We can see how students’ thinking changes over a week of working in teams and with experts. This is exactly what global business needs: the ability to listen to one another, adapt quickly, and turn cultural diversity into a strength when creating products for international markets. This summer school has shown that we have all the resources we need to make such projects a regular part of our work and scale them up,’ said Marat Ismagulov, Deputy Chair of the Board and HR Director at Alfa-Bank.
The educational track was complemented by a rich cultural programme. During their stay in Moscow, the students went on a sightseeing tour of the capital, explored the Moscow Metro, visited Izmailovo, and experienced different aspects of life in the modern city.
The HSE Graduate School of Business continues to develop partnerships with leading universities and business schools in China. These partnerships take a variety of forms, from short-term educational projects and regular student exchanges to off-campus modules for MBA (Master of Business Administration) students and double-degree programmes.
The Digital Product Management summer school was another element of this systematic work and a new step towards strengthening educational cooperation between Russia and China.
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