Traditionally, the event is dedicated to the celebration of the 111^th Anniversary of the University celebrated this year. As always, the event is devoted to the most topical issues of the modern Russian and world economy development. The agenda includes the challenges of the digital economy and the role of Russia against the global trends. These issues brought together representatives of almost all centers of the scientific and educational community of the country, as well as experts and lawmakers, who are engaged in the development of this sphere.

The Plekhanov Russian University very seriously considers the issues of its development in this sphere of education. Opening the conference, Viktor Grishin, Rector of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, said that at the last meeting of the Academic Council it was decided to reconstruct the digital technology building, which will unite all those who deal with this problem - economists, ICT specialists, etc.

As scientists and experts admit, the main challenges in the digital economy are the transformation from a conservative model to a technological one. Business models of such companies as, for example, Uber and Alibaba Group, which are, in fact, digital platforms, rather than the usual model enterprises. In the meanwhile, the capitalization of business ща such model only grows. The speakers named Sberbank and Yandex as Russian examples of companies going along this path, in which the development and volume of the digital technologies introduction is on a huge scale.

Director of the Federal Research Center “Informatics and Management” of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Scientific Director of the National Center of Excellence in the Field of Digital Economy of Lomonosov Moscow State University Igor Sokolov reminded that the digital economy is a new concept for Russia, which had officially born on December 1, 2016, when the President of the Russian Federation had signed the Strategy of Scientific and Technological Development of the country, and in his message to the Federal Assembly had designated this sphere as a priority. Although, of course, these technologies have been developing in our country for several years. In addition to deeply scientific spheres, they also cover the people’s daily life activities, such as, for example, banking services, education and transport.

Maxim Liksutov, Vice-Mayor of Moscow on transport issues, road and transport infrastructure development told about the last one. According to him, due to active introduction of the digital technologies, transport system of Moscow has reached the values of indicators, which can be compared with the ones of the most advanced megapolises. So, the ubiquitous Wi-Fi coverage in land and underground transport is used by more than half of passengers, and, due to the Big Data processing, the transport management system is able to more accurately develop the traffic schedule.

Sergey Ryabukhin, Chairman of the Committee of the Federation Council on Budget and Financial Markets spoke about the lawmaking in this area. Last year, two basic documents were adopted. 26 laws are planned to be adopted in the current year. They relate to e-commerce, crypto-currency, financial services, banking, data in government procurement etc. According to the senator, in some cases, Russia will have to adopt models of foreign partners, but there are also directions, for example mobile applications, where Russia has a leading position. We are two-three times ahead of world practice in this field.