The project was inaugurated by the SputnikPro educational session for students of the Higher School of International Relations and World Politics of the Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistic University.
Sifamandla Zondi, the executive director of the Institute of Pan-African Thought of the University of Johannesburg and chairman of the South African BRICS research center was a special guest at the event. He presented to the audience South Africa's approach to global communications.
Experts from the international news agency and radio Sputnik, director for international cooperation Vasily Pushkov and advisor Oleg Dmitriev, shared their experience of working with foreign media, and also discussed the problem of fake news and ways to verify information.
“We start 2023 with the format of events that showed good results last year and proved to be highly demanded by our colleagues and partners. I'm sure that the conversation with Sifamandla Zondi was very useful for Russian students,” said Pushkov.
Zondi, in his speech, emphasized the importance of an open dialogue in the modern world, saying that international communications globally form public opinion. This, he added, creates common ground for countries across the world "to develop cooperation on such important issues as environmental protection, space exploration, technological exchange and so on."
Within a few months, lectures by Russian and foreign media experts will be held at universities in Russia, Africa and the Middle East. Moreover, special roundtable discussions on topical issues of international cooperation will bring together experts from Egypt, Iran, Cameroon, Lebanon, Mali, Namibia, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and other countries.
SputnikPro is an international education project initiated by the Sputnik agency. It is a system of unique seminars, lectures and master classes by the best Russian and foreign media managers, experts and leading specialists of the agency for journalists, press secretaries, bloggers and senior students of specialized departments of universities. SputnikPro training modules have already been held in a full-time format in 24 countries. In total, since March 2018, more than 6,000 people from 80 countries have participated in the project.