On December 17, 2008, the IDEA Center of the Nenets boarding school held a special seminar on MS PowerPoint, reviewing the results of the Congr@ts! Contest of original greetings. The school’s students had submitted seventeen out of 107 entries presented at the contest. At the seminar high schoolers and their teachers looked at and reviewed the winning presentations from other cities as well as from their own school, and the contest winners talked about their experience of working with MS PowerPoint and shared some of the secrets of their success.

In December 2008, the IDEA Center in Ulyanovsk graduated two groups of alumni: teachers and students of Boarding School 26 for children with mental disabilities. During the training the alumni were introduced to Internet search engines and services and learned to create electronic presentations.

On 16 December 2008, the IDEA Center in Saratov held a seminar on web graphics as a follow up for the Microsoft Unlimited Potential course in Web Design Fundamentals.

In December 2008, one more volunteer center in the remote Pavlovsky area of Ulyanovsk region joined the IDEA Project family. After taking a special training course at the IDEA Center of Ulyanovsk State University, volunteer instructors will hold various Microsoft Unlimited Potential courses on the premises of the computer classes in Pavlovsky Secondary School 1.

On 10 December 2008, the IDEA Project announced final results of the Congr@ts! Contest for original greetings, sponsored by Microsoft Unlimited Potential. Ninety-nine participants from thirty cities, towns and villages of Russia submitted 107 personal entries and group projects, demonstrating their creativity, computer competence, and the depth and beauty of their inner world.

On December 12, 2008, the Nenets boarding school hosted a special IDEA certificate award ceremony for six IDEA alumni including Antonina Sinchenko, a highly decorated teacher and recipient of many regional and national teaching titles, honors and awards, who is about to celebrate her 78th Birthday.

The participants of the all-Russia research and training conference “Social Rehabilitation of Juvenile Offenders,” held in Yekaterinburg in late November 2008, expressed special interest in the unique experience of Kemerovsky region educators in holding IDEA computer training courses for juvenile offenders, one of the most difficult and underserved population groups in the country.

On December 3 – 5, 2008, the team of the volunteer IDEA Center of the Ulan Ude central library held a three day seminar “Meet the Computer” in basic computer skills for people with disabilities. The seminar included both group and individual training sessions as well as home visits to some of the trainees.

The IDEA Center in Irkutsk entered a partnership agreement with Big Baikal Trail, an international environmental project, offering its services in training the project’s volunteers in multimedia skills so that they could develop video materials about the project, upload them on the Internet, and use them in presentations for partners and sponsors.

The IDEA Center of the Chelyabinsk regional academic library presented a specially developed guide for job seekers. Its author, librarian Tatiana Minogina, included into the guide a review of helpful employment-related websites and links to web pages of employment agencies, placement services and labor exchanges, as well as useful tips on how to write a good résumé.

The project “Accessible Employment: Time to Help,” developed by the Archangelsk Association of non-profits for people with disabilities, became one of the winners of the “Time to Help” contest, organized by the St. Petersburg Center for Non-Profits Development and sponsored by British American Tobacco (BAT Russia). One of the project’s objectives is to equip the IDEA Center in Archangelsk with three more computer work stations.

On November 25, 2008, the IDEA Project was named one of the winners of the 2008 Runet Award for “Science and Education” at the 5th annual Russian Internet (Runet) Awards Ceremony held at the Rossiya Concert Hall in Luzhniki, Moscow, and attended by more than 2,500 people.

On November 26, 2008, school teachers from Nikolayevsky district, Ulyanovsk region, received their IDEA certificates at the meeting of the Public Council of the Southern social and cultural higher education district. In the six months of the IDEA Center’s partnership with Ulyanovsk State University and Nikolayevsky district administration, almost eighty teachers and school principals have taken Microsoft Unlimited Potential with twenty more to receive their IDEA certificates before the end of the year. This partnership triggered so much interest among teachers from other districts that they decided to follow suit and sign up for IDEA training in the nearest future.

On November 22, 2002, Kaliningrad first joined the IATP Project, introducing the alumni of American educational exchange programs to many new and interesting opportunities. On November 28, 2008, the IDEA Center team met with freshmen of the local Liberal Arts University and introduced them to the achievements of the Center over the last six years and its successful work with the IDEA Project.

In November 2008, the IDEA Center of Murmansk state regional academic library held a course in Computer Fundamentals for a group of senior citizens and people with disabilities.

On November 21, 2008, the IDEA Center of Ulyanovsk State University awarded IDEA certificates to more than twenty executive officers of the local city parliament (City Duma) who had completed the Microsoft Unlimited Potential course in Computer Fundamentals as part of their personnel re-training program. Responsible and diligent, the alumni, both beginner and more advanced users, gained many new skills, paying special attention to MS Office applications and various functions and features of the Internet.

The achievements of the IDEA Center of Chita State University were presented at the VIIIth all-Russia academic conference “Kulagin Readings 2008” in the section for applied computer science in the areas of economy, education and mathematical modeling.

On November 23 – 27, 2008, the IDEA Center of the National Library of the Buryat Republic held a course in Internet and World Wide Web Fundamentals for senior citizens. The average age of the trainees was sixty-one years old.

On November 21, 2008, the IDEA Center in Stavropol held a special ceremony awarding IDEA Project certificates to the group of alumni from “New Opportunities,” a local non-profit for people with disabilities, who had taken Microsoft Unlimited Potential courses in Computer Fundamentals and Word Processing Fundamentals. The IDEA instructors congratulated their trainees on the successful completion of the training and wished them many new achievements in mastering IT technologies.

On November 17 – 21, the IDEA Center of the Far East state academic library in Khabarovsk held a course in Computer Fundamentals for job seekers and low-wage workers.

On 17 – 20 November 2008, the IDEA Center of Perm regional public library held a course in Computer Fundamentals for fifteen clients of the municipal Employment Center. On November 21, the new alumni attended a specially organized workshop where they applied their new knowledge and skills learning to write résumés and looking for vacancies online.

The IDEA Center in Ryazan held a seminar in computer competency and work place adaptation for vocational college graduates about to enter the workforce for the first time.

-On November 18, 2008, in honor of the 10th anniversary of the Legal Information Centers Program in Russia, the National Library of the Sakha Republic (Yakutiya) held the seminar “New Technologies and Resources for Legal Information Centers” for workers of such centers in twenty regions of the republic. The seminar was financed by the grant won by the National Library’s IDEA Center under the small grant program for educational centers.

On November 13, 2008, the IDEA Center of the Far East State Academic Library in Khabarovsk hosted a special meeting of the Specter Club for blind PC users, held in honor of the White Cane Day and attended by eleven club members.

-The IDEA Center of Ryazan’s Inter-Regional Center for Supplementary Education launched the project “IT Technologies: Connecting Generations.” The project provides IT training for socially vulnerable young people and encourages them to interview senior citizens with the goal of writing their professional stories and posting them on various Internet resources. In preparation to implementing the project, the IDEA Center team held a training seminar for its coordinators.

On November 10, 2008, the IDEA Center in Moscow hosted a meeting of PH International with Microsoft’s vice-president and director of Unlimited Potential Michael Rawding, and director general of Microsoft Unlimited Potential strategic projects in Microsoft Russia, Leonid Klyuev, Microsoft Russia’s social projects manager, David Koenig, the in Central and Eastern Europe Jeremy Gittins. Among the participants were Inessa Grikurova, the director for executive director of PH International, and Yekaterina Fedotova, the director of the IDEA Project.

On October 28 – November 19, 2008, the IDEA Center of M. Lermontov Regional Academic Library in Stavropol, held a computer training course for members of “New Opportunities,” a regional non-profit for people with mental disabilities.

-On 7 November 2008, the IDEA Center in Ryazan held the seminar “The Internet for Socially Vulnerable Youth,” attended by youth workers involved with socially vulnerable users of libraries and other educational services. The seminar participants analyzed the current dynamics of using the latest IT technologies and communications resources in social youth work.

On October 29 – 30, 2008, the all-Russia conference “Celebrating 90 Years of Russian Information and Bibliography Services” took place in St. Petersburg. The conference was attended by experts from major federal libraries including the Russian State Library and the State Public Historical Library of Russia, as well as librarians from regional libraries and special library centers from twenty regions of the country.

Among other things, the conference participants focused on the best modern practices of working with information. Margarita Sdobnikova, the coordinator of the IDEA Center in Vladimir, made a special presentation on the topic, reviewing the results of the Center's work and its main achievements. In the last three years, 377 people with disabilities, senior citizens and people out of work completed Microsoft Unlimited Potential computer courses and received IDEA Project certificates. As the result, many of these alumni improved their professional qualifications, secured suitable jobs, and found new means of self-expression. More than 600 people increased their level of IT competence at seminars facilitated by the IDEA Center team.

On October 29, 2008, Tyumen’s Central Library hosted a seminar “Documentation Services for Rehabilitation Facilities,” jointly held by the local Department for Social Development and the regional rehabilitation center for people with disabilities. Among other things, the seminar participants were introduced to the work of the IDEA Center in Tyumen and agreed upon further partnership with the IDEA Project.