16.03.2021
On March 3, Dr. Maria Matveeva, Director of the Russian-Austrian public forum "Sochi Dialogue" delivered a lecture to the students of RSUH "International cooperation during COVID-19: new challenges, opportunities and experience".
The Sochi Dialogue is a platform for establishing and developing direct contacts between representatives of civil society in Russia and Austria. Dr. Matveeva spoke about the international cooperation of the two countries in such areas as culture, sports, history, science and education in times of the pandemic.
When all borders were closed, the question arose as to whether it was possible to maintain business relations under such working conditions.
“We thought not, but that answer was wrong. Summing up the results of 2020, I can say that we have not lost our momentum, although the events had to be held online,” explained Dr. Matveeva.
In particular, a large-scale Sochi Dialogue cybersports event took place in FIFA20 # dialogecup2020. More than 150 players took part in the tournament.
In addition, a series of lectures dedicated to Austrian culture was delivered as part of of the Sochi Dialogue. The course was divided into several modules: music, film, art and philosophy.
“We plan to continue lectures after the opening of the borders, involving RSUH in the academic process,” said Dr. Matveeva.
During the meeting, the students were asked questions about the plans of the Sochi Dialogue in the field of youth cooperation.
“I would like to note that if it was not for the pandemic, we would not have thought about holding events online. We realized that the onsite events are always local, but the online ones are for everyone.”
