Siberian Federal University Builds PROJECT MATE, a Platform Designed to Help Students Find Teammates and Bring Ideas to Life

A Talent “Radar” for Student Initiatives

At Siberian Federal University (SFU), Anastasia Tamarovskaya, an instructor at the university’s Digital Department, together with students Yana Kubyuk and Alexander Baranov, is developing a platform that acts as a meeting point for students seeking collaborators for scientific, educational, IT, and other project-based initiatives.

The idea is simple but powerful: students can publish their project concepts and find people willing to join them — from the first spark of an idea to full implementation. For Russia’s IT education landscape, PROJECT MATE represents an example of bottom-up institutional support, helping build an infrastructure for team-based learning and project work. For students, it becomes a real channel for networking, cooperation, and skills development.

PROJECT MATE has the potential to become the core of an active student community — uniting programmers, researchers, designers, and anyone eager to work collaboratively. It may also strengthen cross-department and cross-institute partnerships at SFU and, eventually, evolve into a broader inter-university network.

One Click to Join: A Scalable Model for Other Universities

If PROJECT MATE proves user-friendly and flexible enough to support a wide range of project formats, it could expand far beyond SFU. Replication would not mean a strict copy-paste; rather, the concept could be adapted to the specific culture, programs, and collaboration needs of each university.

“Project management and implementation skills are essential for everyone involved in SFU’s strategic initiatives. It is important to remember that a strategic technological project is, above all, work aimed at producing a finished product. The product must be relevant to industry, to consumers, and capable of being commercialized in one form or another: a solution, a startup, or even the sale of project documentation.”

Sergey Verkhovets

Vice-Rector for Strategic Projects at SFU, highlights why platforms like PROJECT MATE

The model could take the form of an open-source framework, a franchised toolkit or a distributed ecosystem where universities share improvements and best practices.

But to grow, the platform must remain alive. Its content depends entirely on students, meaning its sustainability hinges on their engagement and motivation. SFU’s role is to maintain ongoing support — moderation, technical updates, and incremental feature improvements. Continuous movement is key: new users, new projects, and new tools are what transform a platform into long-term infrastructure.

Hackathons as the Foundation: Building Toward Continuous Collaboration

SFU’s shift toward practical, project-based interaction began in 2023. That spring, the university hosted a 24-hour IT Academy hackathon where students built projects across fields ranging from web development to cybersecurity, presenting solutions to SFU experts and representatives of the company Sibinfosot.

By December, the momentum had grown: the winter hackathon brought together 96 students, forming 21 teams. These events demonstrated strong student demand for team-based work — and willingness to engage in complex, real-world challenges.

Across Russia, similar collaboration hubs have emerged at universities where young researchers and developers unite around ideas, launch projects, and seek like-minded peers. The formats vary, but the principle is the same: networks outperform isolated effort.

PROJECT MATE continues this logic but shifts it into a constant operational mode. Instead of forming teams only around temporary events, students gain a year-round space for cooperation.

Building “Dream Teams” Across Disciplines

For higher education — especially in IT — PROJECT MATE provides a structured pathway toencourage project activity and give motivated students the support they need to collaborate effectively. With active use, SFU could see: more interdisciplinary projects, more student-led startups, more initiative groups formed organically through shared interests.

Instead of isolated hackathons, institutions may witness regular cycles of collaboration, where ideas emerge, evolve, and get implemented on a continuous basis.

Over time, this could grow into a national network of student innovation platforms, each adapted to local needs but connected through common practices. With sustained engagement, PROJECT MATE can transform from an experimental solution into a functioning ecosystem where “dream teams” form and new projects gain momentum.