The program of the III Digital Forum SmartDesign, which took place in the walls of Ƶ, included the first hackathon “Prompt Engineering in Modern Professions” within the track of digital departments. Teams from 12 universities participating in the federal program “Priority 2030” gathered at the university's site.


Students from various fields of study tried their hand at prompt engineering - the development and optimization of prompts for the effective use of language models (LM) in a wide range of applications and research topics. The teams had two days to develop an information system (website, app or bot) on the theme “Family” in honor of the Year of the Family declared in 2024.

The task of the hackathon was to teach students how to create intelligent agents to solve their daily routine tasks, such as automatically sorting files or responding to an incoming email using artificial intelligence. In addition, the guys had to learn how to work not on the technical plane, but in the area of soft skills, i.e. how to negotiate among themselves, work as a team, brainstorm and present their projects to investors.
The hackathon participants learned to use AI technologies in both programming and design to create a finished product. The students used the NoCode system n8n as their main programming tool. This is a tool that allows you to create programs without programming skills. The program initially has a huge number of pre-prepared subroutines, and the developer must choose a set of blocks that solve individual parts of a problem and connect them in the desired sequence. If the student is an experienced programmer and believes that the existing blocks do not solve his problem, he has the opportunity to create his own block using classical programming.
“For the first time within the Forum, which is held within the walls of the university not for the first year, we gathered students and leaders of the Digital Chairs project within the framework of the ongoing Priority 2030 program. The theme of the hackathon, dedicated to prompt engineering, is relevant for students of all areas of training, because artificial intelligence is already an effective tool in many professions. The hackathon also became a platform for discussing further educational and creative projects between the participating universities”.
Natalya Klimova, vice-rector for development of educational programs of Ƶ

Such a meeting format for the participants of the Digital Chairs project was held for the first time. It also brought together project leaders from different universities to discuss work processes.
Anton Soshnikov, Head of the Digital Chair at the University of Industrial Technologies and Design, Head of the Department of Digital and Additive Technologies at Ƶ, said:
“Such meetings of representatives of digital departments of different universities in Russia are extremely important for the joint development of artificial intelligence technologies. Thanks to close communication, we share best practices, plan joint projects, design standards and approaches to AI education and research. The level of knowledge and competencies of each of us is very different. We are looking for ways and means to utilize AI in different fields of knowledge and professions. Only through joint efforts we can accelerate the development of AI technologies, develop common standards and approaches to training and research in this direction, and improve the overall quality of education in all corners of our country”.
The round table was attended by: Vitaly Borshch, Director of the Scientific and Educational Center “New Transport Technologies” of the Russian University of Transport; Alla Kravets, Professor of the Department “Computer Aided Design and Search Engineering Systems” of Volgograd State Technical University; Olga Kalimullina, Acting Head of the Department of Data Economics of Prof. M.A. Bonch-Bruevich St. Petersburg State University of Technology; Nikita Rostov, Leading Expert of the Project Office, Deputy Head of the “Digital Departments” project of MGIMO; Nikita Rostov, Acting Head of the Department of Computer Aided Design and Search Engineering Systems of Volgograd State Technical University. In addition, the following universities were represented at the event: National Research Technological University “MISIS”, Moscow State Technological University “STANKIN” and Kazan National Research Technological University. The guests of the hackathon were also Maria Potolokova, Professor of the Ballet Studies Department of the A.Y. Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet. Maria Potolokova, Professor of the Department of Ballet Studies at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, and Nadezhda Tsvetkova, Associate Professor at the Higher School of Project Activities and Innovations in Industry at Polytechnic and Head of the Digital Departments Project Office.




