Orphans and Foster Children in Russia Are Learning Digital Skills
Kids Are Studying Programming, Prompting, and Game Design Using Artificial Intelligence
In Russia, Sberbank, the Contribution to the Future Foundation, and the programming school Algorithmika have launched a nationwide education initiative to teach digital and AI skills to orphans and children from foster homes. Under the guidance of experienced teachers and professional mentors, participants learn to work with GigaChat and Kandinsky — Russian neural networks for text and image generation — while exploring the basics of programming, prompt engineering, and AI-assisted game design.
Each student completes the course by creating a personal digital project — a comic, animated short, or computer game — showcasing what they’ve learned.
The Program Is Expanding Nationwide
The training program consists of 20 academic hours of hands-on learning, spread across five days with four academic hours per day. It’s designed for two age groups, from 9 to 18 years old, and aims to reach over 1,000 children by the end of the year.
Classes are held offline at Algorithmika centers or through traveling workshops across Russia — including Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the Moscow, Arkhangelsk, Volgograd, Tyumen, Voronezh, Bryansk, Saratov, Omsk, Kaluga, Samara, and Rostov regions, as well as Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, Karelia, and Kamchatka.
The project not only gives vulnerable children access to modern education but also helps them gain confidence and future-ready skills in one of the world’s fastest-growing fields — artificial intelligence.
