Two groups of guests could be seen in Kazan University on August 22nd.

The IBM delegation included General Manager for Russia and CIS Andrey Filatov, General Manager for Eastern and Central Europe Michel Charouk, and Director of Kazan Office Yuliya Tarasova.

The guests visited several facilities of the Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology. Their interest was of practical nature – IBM plans to offer its famous Watson supercomputer’s services here. One of Watson’s current fields of work is diagnostics, and Kazan University can cooperate in its transition to Russian medical environment, including Russian translation services. Another prospective area where supercomputing might come in handy is hydrocarbon research, one of KFU’s priorities. Higher School of ITIS, as was agreed with Rector Ilshat Gafurov, will join the work with IBM.

As for the Czech delegation, it was headed by Governor of South Moravian Region Michal Hasek. The guests from Eastern Europe also chose the Institute of Fundamental Medicine as their main destination. KFU has several partners in Czechia, including Masaryk University on whose premises the KFU Center of Russian Language and Culture was opened in May 2015. The Czech Center at KFU was established a little earlier, in October 2014. One Czech academic is currently working at Kazan University. There is also a growing number of joint publications with Czech partners. For example, there have already been 21 in physics and astronomy, 16 – in medicine and life sciences.