On March 5th, the qualifying round of the 13th season of CASE-IN, the largest educational championship in solving engineering cases, took place at KNRTU. Over its 12 years of existence, CASE-IN has evolved from a competition among mining students into a full-fledged ecosystem involving 100 schools and universities, 170 industry companies, and 1,000 mentors and curators. It has become a platform for career guidance and youth development, serving as a starting point for building career trajectories. The theme of the new season is "Technological Innovations." This year’s organizers include the Foundation for Educational Projects “Reliable Shift”, the Youth Forum of Mining Leaders, Astralogica company, and the “Russia — Country of Opportunities” platform.

In the lobby in front of the round hall in Building A, guests were greeted by volunteers from partner companies, who told them about internship programs and current vacancies, as well as gave gifts. For example, Sibur offered the attendees to participate in the process of plastic recycling with the use of a bicycle shredder: brightly colored branded key chains became a small reminder of the event for the guests. The grand opening of the championship began with welcoming words from Dilbar Sultanova, Vice Rector for Academic Affairs.

“I am very pleased that KNRTU has become the venue for such a large-scale event. Based on last year's results, we became the best university in two categories: “Petrochemistry” and “Industrial Engineering”. CASE-IN truly inspires: every year, the number of participants from the university increases, and this year there are already 65. I wish you success and victories!” welcomed Dilbar Sultanova.

Representatives from partner companies also addressed the audience in the hall: Oleg Ten, Deputy Director for Science at Tatneft; Ilgham Shaymukhametov, Chief Expert in Technological Modeling at Kazanorgsintez; and ambassadors of personnel policy at Sibur, Elena Lanskaya and Karina Rakhmatullina.

A battle unfolded across three platforms at the university—the defense of student projects in three areas: “Project Engineering”, “Biotechnologies”, and “Petrochemistry”. Each team had up to 10 days to solve the cases presented by partner companies, and their presentations lasted no more than 6 minutes. Afterward, participants answered questions from the experts. To summarize the championship results, they used special software—the CASE-IN simulator—where teams could evaluate their performance directly in their personal accounts.

The winners of the qualifying round, who will represent KNRTU in the next stage, are:

- Ksenia Antonova, Margarita Burmasova, Alua Arinova in the “Biotechnologies” category;
- Pavel Radomsky, Alina Radomskaya, Anna Radomskaya, and Ilya Radomsky in the “Project Engineering” category;
- Shamil Gataullin, Aliya Zakirova, Dinara Zamaletdinova, and Anvar Feyzrakhmanov in the “Petrochemistry” category.

Congratulations to the students whose solutions within CASE-IN may serve as the foundation for developing key economic sectors!