Education in IT as means of implementing strategy for development of Russian IT industry up to 2025

This paper has been created with the purpose to analyze the challenges that the Russian IT sector faces with an emphasis on the role to be played by the educational system to help bridge the technological gap. At present, Russia has a well-developed economy of the twentieth century. It largely consists in the extraction and export of mineral resources. The twenty first century calls for an innovation economy. It is intellect-intensive with a high added value. Information technologies are at the heart of such an economy. The Russian government has adopted a Strategy for the development of the IT sector, but there are challenges to deal with. The biggest challenge, however, is a shortage of highly qualified IT professionals. The authors have put the shortage at 130 000 - to 280 000 IT people within a five-year timeframe, which is in line with most of the other assessments. It´s worth noting that IT people will be hard to import, even though Russia is in second place world-wide in attracting labor migrants. Europe has a sharper shortage and enjoys a higher standard of living, so Russia will find it hard to compete. In other words, Russia can bridge the shortage only by graduating more IT professionals. The first steps in this direction have been taken, i.e. Innopolis University, Technopark Mail.ru, but it´s not enough. The good work must continue, otherwise modernization will dry up.