Yandex became a laureate of the Knowledge Prize for a general contribution to education The winners in this nomination were Yandex, the Big Change project and the educator Leo Bokeria. The awards were presented by the First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation Sergey Kiriyenko.
The award was established by the Russian society “Knowledge”. Its goals are to recognize the merits of Russian educators, identify meaningful educational projects and confirm the high status of an educator in the country. The Knowledge Prize was conceived as the main educational prize in Russia and is being held for the first time, but will become an annual one.
The nominees were selected by an expert commission from public and state figures, scientists and representatives of the country's leading universities. She identified shortlists for each nomination, which included 103 nominees in total. The applications were evaluated according to three criteria – scale, social significance and uniqueness of the project or the activities of the educator. On November 29, at the Intercontinental Hotel, a meeting of the Honorary Jury of the Prize was held, during which the winners of the Vision were determined. The jury consisted of honorary representatives of science, art culture, statesmen and leaders of the business community. On the same day, open voting started on the official website of the award. Residents of Russia chose the winner in a special nomination “According to the listeners' version.”
A total of 3053 applications from 80 regions of Russia were submitted for the award. The most popular was the nomination “For general contribution to education” (14 percent of the total number of applications), and many applications were submitted for the awards “Culture and Arts” (12 percent), “For active educational activities at school” (11 percent) and “History” (10 percent).
The laureates of the award will be invited to cooperate with the Knowledge Society. They will also receive the status of a resident of the “Knowledge Center” on Mount Mashuk in Pyatigorsk – this will give them access to a wide range of multimedia infrastructure and a comprehensive educational program for the development, production and production of educational content. In addition, residents of the center will receive support from Znaniya in promoting their educational projects to a wide audience.