For the first time, the regional stage of the Gifted Girls & Brainy Boys Olympiad, co-organized by the Empathy Foundation, took place in Sverdlovsk Region. Tenth-grade students from the region had the opportunity to participate in the qualifying round of this well-known nationwide television Olympiad. The region became the first in the Urals to launch a special selection.
Mikhail Shelkov’s foundation awarded three winners with one-time grants of 100,000 rubles each (1100 USD), as well as three runners-up with grants of 50,000 rubles each (550 USD). These six school children from the Urals became participants in the new season of the nationwide humanitarian Olympiad for school children, Gifted Girls & Brainy Boys, and the winners of this Olympiad will have the opportunity to enter the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) without exams.
Mikhail Shelkov’s Empathy Foundation, and the Foundation for Development of Physics and Technology Schools presented a free physics, mathematics and IT camp in Moscow, for school children from Sverdlovsk and Perm. This first joint educational project allowed students to improve their knowledge in the fields of physics, mathematics or computer science, receive training from the best teachers at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), visit the university’s museum and closed laboratories, and start preparing for Olympiads and scientific conferences.
At the end of 2021, the final of the Masterskaya: Salda 2.0 accelerator for teenagers from Verkhnyaya and Nizhnyaya Salda, organized by the foundation in collaboration with the Higher Technical School (Tula), took place. Fifty-four students worked on projects to improve their cities together with mentors and teachers. Starting this year, the four winning teams, offering the most unusual solutions, will be able to implement their projects and completely transform their hometowns.
“One of the most important directions in the foundation’s work is the support of young talents. This year, the accelerator was held in Salda for the first time, but after such a successful start, I would like for us to organize programs and competitions for active and gifted young people in other regions as well,” shared the founder of Empathy, Mikhail Shelkov.
In January 2022, Empathy allocated funds to the children’s rehabilitation center in Nizhnyaya Salda, Sverdlovsk Region, to equip the space for a new group of children. A month earlier, they had sent Ded Moroz (Russian Santa Claus) with gifts to visit the children.
With the foundation’s support, 80 pupils from the middle school in Verkhnyaya Salda, Sverdlovsk Region, learned the basics of programming in the first half of the 2021-2022 academic year. The materials and ideas were provided by the company ROBBO, while Empathy provided financial support to the teachers. After 12 classes, young programmers were able to animate characters and create their own games.
The foundation also supports talented graduates. In 2021, top scorers in the Unified State Exam (EGE) from Verkhnyaya Salda, Sverdlovsk Region, received cash prizes.
In November 2020, Mikhail Shelkov’s foundation, and the VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation supported large families in Verkhnyaya and Nizhnyaya Salda by allocating over 3 million rubles(116 000 USD) to them, which amounts to 5,000(72 USD) rubles per child.
In 2020, the foundation also provided targeted support to the correctional school in Verkhnyaya Salda, Sverdlovsk Region, allocating 3 million rubles(43 000 USD) towards the improvement of the school’s surroundings, fuel for transportation of students from nearby cities and settlements, and the construction of sports grounds.