‘Educational Innovators Want Results that Are Useful to Society’: KIVO Opens Tenth-Anniversary Season
For the tenth year in a row, the Competition of Innovations in Education (KIVO) is accepting innovative project submissions—educational training resources, apps, platforms, events and media, methodological and technological developments and much more. The top 30 projects will be presented at the ‘startup alley’ of the Catalyst for Innovation in Education conference in Moscow. The creators of the best project will be able to conduct joint research with scientists from the HSE University Institute of Education. There will be two waves of applications; the first closes on October 15 (and offers certain bonuses to project creators), while the second closes on October 31.
The Competition of Innovations in Education (KIVO) originated at HSE University in 2014 and has been held annually ever since. In that time, the competition has received more than 5,000 submissions from 21 countries and 162 cities. Participants, finalists, and winners from various years have implemented numerous successful projects that have since become well known within the educational system and beyond.
HSE University is the main organiser of KIVO 2023. The competition is being held as part of the university’s strategic project ‘Disseminating Educational Innovations through the Implementation of the International Competition of Innovations in Education in 2022–2024’. Grassroots initiatives discovered through the competition are included in the roadmap of the strategic project as additional resources for educational modernisation and transformation.
The primary goal of the competition is to find promising projects implemented by individual developers or teams, highlight the best ones, and provide them academic support. The projects can be devoted to various levels of education and at various stages of development, from the idea stage to a functioning business.
Participation in the competition is open to school teachers and university lecturers, educational administrators, leaders of educational startups, business coaches and representatives of corporate education, and enterprising university and school students. The competition has no regional or age restrictions.
Competition submissions in 2023 will undergo a double independent review process: they will be reviewed by more than 100 education and business experts, who will also provide feedback to the teams.
Based on the results of the expert reviews, finalists will be determined and invited to HSE University for the Catalyst of Innovations in Education conference, which features business games and creative brainstorming sessions. The even is open to all representatives of the educational ecosystem, and will help participants of the competition to learn about the latest trends, meet potential users of their innovative products in formal and informal settings, test hypotheses, receive extensive feedback, and develop their social capital.
Competition finalists from various years have assessed the role played by KIVO in the life of their projects as an accelerator, a stimulus for further development, and an opportunity to meet a wide range of experts—including both mentors with extensive experience and representatives of startups who may be interested in potential cooperation.
HSE University Vice Rector
Educational innovators are interested not only in monetising their ideas, but also in obtaining a result that is useful to society. The key goal of KIVO is to facilitate the formation and development of an educational ecosystem where participants support each other. We at HSE University are ready to provide support to innovators, help them to select and improve promising ideas, involve colleagues in applied research, and assist in building productive dialogue.
Director of the HSE University Institute of Education
Our mission at the institute is to create a culture of evidence in education. That is why we decided to provide academic support to the winning project of KIVO 2023. We will work with its creators to conduct joint research grounded in an evidence-based approach. This will help to better perceive the development potential of the project and strengthen its brand.
Director of KIVO
Even after ten years, interest in innovations in Russian education remains as strong as ever. In turbulent conditions, when a system must constantly adapt to new circumstances, grassroots innovations often become a source of new and quick solutions. KIVO is changing too—becoming not only a competition and catalyst, but also a collection of the best innovative solutions.
Submissions to the competition will be accepted in two waves.
The first wave ends on October 15 (inclusive). Projects submitted in the first wave may be publicised on KIVO’s social media pages, and project creators from outside Moscow will be able to apply for a travel grant to attend the conference ‘Catalyst of Innovations in Education’, which will be held in the city on December 5–6.
The second wave will be open from October 16–31 (inclusive).