Interview with TAdviser: Deputy Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation Andrei Selsky on the priorities of digital transformation

Andrey Selsky: Indeed, for the first time I came into contact with the sports sphere, working in the Organizing Committee "Sochi 2014." First he was the project manager, and then worked as the director of the Department of Organizational Development. And it was a fundamental experience. After the Olympic Games in Sochi, I continued to work in sports, collaborating with the Russian International Olympic University. RMOU

He taught, was one of the co-authors of the leadership development program that we created for the 2019 Universiade directorate in Krasnoyarsk. The course that I conducted and continue to read in the updated format at the university is called the "Strategy of the Sports Organization." Of course, it also pays attention to digitalization issues. The course is based on experience in the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee. I learned a lot and learn from my listeners. And RMOU students are representatives of the sports industry, deep and real: employees of federal, regional and municipal authorities, sports committees, sports centers and clubs, sports federations and associations. Therefore, when I came to the civil service in the Ministry of Sports in 2020, we were already familiar with many people from the sports industry.

I faced directly with the digital sphere, working at the ANO Digital Economy (in 2018-2020, I served as director for the direction "Personnel for the digital economy" of ANO Digital Economy, - approx. TAdviser). In 2020, he underwent professional retraining under the program for digital transformation managers at the RANEPA. By the way, my thesis, which I wrote in 2002, graduating from the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University, was devoted to the Internet as a field of commerce in the world economy.

Andrei Selsky: In the format of the working group, we were engaged in adjusting the federal project, held many thematic events, including the All-Russian educational project in the field of digital economics "Figure Lesson." We actively interacted with various ministries, with the "University 2035," which is the center of competence for the federal project "Personnel for the digital economy."

Andrei Selsky: Yes, he was my leader in the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee.

Andrey Selsky: Quite a lot of graduates of the Sochi-2014 Organizing Committee continue to work in the sports sector. I know for sure three people who participated in the preparations for the Olympic Games in Sochi, and as of March 2021 are regional sports ministers. We try to communicate with them regularly and check our watches.

Andrei Selsky: Yes, at the start there was a panel interview. Then testing, which consisted of two stages. The first took place in a remote format and was aimed at evaluating different competencies. At the second stage, a face-to-face interview was held with an eye to professional activities. All stages of the competitive selection were organized by specialists of the RANEPA, and the final interview was conducted by the Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation Maksut Shadaev.

Andrey Selsky: We formulated a target set of priority services - on the State Services portal and as part of the creation of our industry platform - that are important to implement as part of the digital transformation of the sports sector.

Andrei Selsky: Yes, very follows. On the one hand, the Mintsifra are our good friends and colleagues, and on the other, our "holy inquisition." For example, we have key indicators that the Ministry of Digital Affairs tracks.

Andrei Selsky: If we talk about goals in general, then all departments as of March 2021 have the priority of creating useful online services for citizens and ensuring reliable access to them. In our case, in addition to this, we are working on specialized services and modules for the sports industry (for professional athletes, coaches, etc.).

The sports industry is about one and a half million sportsmen, about 400,000 coaches, tens of thousands of sports facilities, more than 5,000 sports schools, about 20,000 athletes in the national teams of Russia, hundreds of all-Russian sports federations.

By the fourth quarter of 2021, a single digital GIS platform "Physical Culture and Sports" will be created. And, in accordance with the instructions of the President of Russia and our departmental digital transformation program, this system will contain the information necessary to take into account persons regularly engaged in physical education and sports. These include registers of sports facilities, organizations, competitions, assigned categories and titles, etc. In addition, information and methodological materials on physical culture, sports and sports medicine will be posted on the platform.

I would name four specific priorities of the departmental digital transformation program. The first is the creation of online services for citizens who increase the convenience of access to physical education and sports.

The second priority is to ensure transparency and increase the speed of processes and decision-making within the industry. For example, in March 2021, to receive a sports title, such as a master of sports, it is necessary to collect a large package of documents, which is then manually checked by several instances. The digital format of the process will allow you to assign the title almost immediately following the results of competitions in which the athlete fulfilled the required standard.

The third priority is a consequence of the second and is related to the management reporting of the Ministry of Sports. On the platform of the GIS "Physical Culture and Sports," we will collect the full range of statistical reporting in the sports sphere, moreover, on the basis of primary objective data. This will allow a reliable assessment of the number of people systematically engaged in physical education and sports, eliminating duplication and errors on the ground.

Finally, the fourth priority of our work is the most technologically advanced, but also the most undisclosed so far. We are talking about deep analytics, which will allow us to interpret industry data on economic, social and sports indicators, including using artificial intelligence technology. Thanks to this, it will be possible to objectively determine the popularity of various sports, assess the workload of sports facilities, make managerial decisions on choosing the most optimal places for the construction of new facilities, objectively and transparently evaluate state investments in sports and their performance. Separately, I will mention the analytics of the results of athletes and their level of training, which in the future will increase both the transparency of the training process and sports results. As of March 2021, such analytics are developed by sports federations, leagues and private companies in several sports - for example, football, hockey, triathlon. We have an agreement on the inclusion of pilot datasets for these species as an experiment in the framework of the federal project "Artificial Intelligence."

Andrey Selsky: One of the priority services that will work in the GIS platform "Physical Culture and Sports" is the automation of recording in the organization of sports training (including through the Unified Portal of State and Municipal Services). That is, everyone, including parents of preschoolers and schoolchildren, will be able to apply for classes in the desired sport online. Three more services will solve the problems of forming a single calendar of sports competitions, assigning sports ranks and titles, as well as collecting statistical reports in the sports and sports sphere.

At the same time, we understand that it is important to support not only the relevant state information system, but also the entire ecosystem of sectoral digital solutions operating at the federal or regional level. That is, we do not seek to replace with our platform all those solutions that already exist or will be created.

We try to build on people's life situations and build a client-centric architecture. For example, for recording at a sports facility or at a sports school, the possibility of choosing them by geolocation is important. And this service can be provided, including in addition to the functionality provided by the Unified Portal of Public Services. In addition, so that people can effectively use online sports services, it is necessary to earn unified registries at the level of the whole country.

It is important to understand that services for citizens in the sports sector can be implemented both on the side of the state and by private players. And one of our tasks we see the development of an ecosystem of digital resources in physical culture and sports. In this work, we are assisted by the Digital Economy organization, which fills the corresponding library of cases. This library (available on the website of the ANO Digital Economy) contains as of March 2021 more than 30 solutions that help build online services in sports at the regional level, including without requiring budget funding.

Andrey Selsky: Yes, we count on a certain integration and data exchange. This will allow, firstly, not to invent a bicycle, and secondly, to offer best practices to users as part of the work of the departmental system. But the role of the state here, probably, should not be dominant. Public-private partnerships or resource sharing are more promising. The experience of other industries shows that outside the framework of public services, interaction with the end user is better managed by private players working in a competitive environment. Therefore, we rely on the development of the entire digital sports ecosystem. At the same time, end-to-end services for the sports sector will be available directly on the Physical Culture and Sports platform.

For example, this applies to processes such as scheduling competitions, assigning sports ranks, titles, refereeing categories, accreditation of sports federations, and so on. Let's not forget about the rather large amount of statistics that the Ministry of Sports collects on forms. Rosstat In March 2021, the process is arranged in this way: once a year a campaign is held to collect huge Excel tables at the municipal level, they are aggregated at the regional level, then data are received from the regional level by the Ministry of Sports, where they are manually collected. Industry summary reporting appears.

Naturally, we must ensure that these reports are generated automatically, based on primary data and with minimal participation by any intermediary.

Andrey Selsky: Naturally, the collection of statistical reports does not make our department original. This is normal public administration. The Ministry of Sports has just begun this. We conducted experimental data collection in December 2020 already in the prototype of the information system.

It must be understood that the matter is not limited to statistics. Do you know how long the process of assigning sports ranks and titles takes? A few months, or even more than a year! And the higher the rank or rank, the more the documents for assignment should go. As of March 2021, document packages are formed in paper form, a certain number of instances pass. If we are talking about the title "Master of Sports of Russia" and above, then these instances include the federal ministry and personally the minister.

Andrey Selsky: Yes. And in order for this process to take not months, but days, of course, it is important that the information system works, and the minutes of the competition are loaded there in machine-readable form automatically.

Andrei Selsky: Annually, the Ministry of Sports receives about 15 thousand applications for the titles of "master of sports," "honored master of sports" and "master of sports of international class." From a third to half of these applications are returned due to various violations, inadequacy, and so on.

Andrey Selsky: Yes!

Andrey Selsky: Ideally, the assignment of grades and ranks should occur on the fact that the athlete fulfills one or another norm at the competition. If he has fulfilled the norm prescribed in the relevant rules for such or such a category, then, in principle, the assignment should occur automatically or with minimal use of human resources.

Andrei Selsky: We really want to do this in 2021. At least in pilot operation mode.

Andrey Selsky: Here it is important to take into account the specifics of different sports disciplines. Each sport has its own features, measurable parameters and data that need to be collected and which affect sports results. The task of the Ministry of Sports is to organize and qualitatively support the exchange of practices and aggregation of data. At the same time, we try to interact with both sports federations and startups in order to understand the entire range of current developments. We are included in the list of pilot areas for the analysis of datasets in the framework of the federal project "Artificial Intelligence." Several organizations have a promising texture - in football, ice hockey and, for example, trialone.

But in general, I would note several points in the data analysis market in sports. There is a gap between the development of technology and the methodology of training in a particular sport. That is, a technology startup can quickly and successfully make MVP (Minimum Viable Product - a minimally viable product, - approx. Ed.) To process some data. But the influence of these data on the athlete's preparation process will require a rather deep methodological study. Often startups in terms of the technique are late.

On the other hand, sports federations that collect, process and analyze data, build a relationship between them and sports results, often do not work with artificial intelligence and big data, but deal - let's say - with small data. For example, if we take hockey, then there will be four key parameters for each player - throws, passes, shots on target and goals scored. And, in principle, it is quite possible to process this information in most cases using Excel, and the value of such data for making decisions on players and the training process is already huge.

So we see two large segments. One is technological, which needs to go the way in order to "pump" in terms of the technique. And the second is real methodological, which uses data, but not large, but small.

Andrey Selsky: The key role of the ministry here is to ensure that different participants in this process have access to developments. Therefore, we try to support different projects by organizing their networking with each other and with sports federations.

For these tasks, together with the Ministry of Culture, we are creating a single methodological information resource in the field of physical culture, sports and sports medicine on the site of the National Electronic Library.

Andrey Selsky: We have a basic scenario and a development scenario. The basic implies the creation of priority services - this is 200 million rubles in 2021 and 50 million rubles in 2022 and 2023. The development scenario is about 1 billion rubles a year. The Ministry of Sports is historically one of the most underfunded departments in terms of technology. The budget allocated to information technology in previous years amounted to about 40 million rubles a year. According to this indicator, the Ministry of Sports ranked 66th out of 74 federal executive bodies, lagging not only from other ministries, but also from most federal agencies.

As of March 2021, we are close to entering the open competition. According to its results, the developer of a single digital platform will be determined, which includes a certain number of services and registries.

Andrei Selsky: Despite the fact that there seems to be nothing, in fact a lot has already been created. There are achievements both in the regions and at the level of sports federations. They relate to the automation of management processes, the implementation of information systems, the use of best practices. About 20 regions can boast of this in one way or another. The most advanced are Moscow and the Moscow region, which is not surprising. Further, I would note such, for example, regions as the Republic of Tatarstan, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk and Yaroslavl regions. These are those regions in which basic automation of processes at the level of electronic document flow, scheduling is implemented, to varying degrees of study there are thematic services on public services portals.

Among the sports federations that use and develop digital solutions, it is worth noting the All-Russian Federation of Rhythmic Gymnastics, the Russian Hockey Federation and several others.

Andrei Selsky: As of March 2021, there are few of us - 12 people. Plans to assemble a team of 30-35 people. The role of the customer requires quite a lot of work. I am already silent about the implementation process. It is the introduction and bringing of technology to specific places, the "last mile" is the lion's share of the work. Plus, at the moment, sports organizations are not included in the register of socially significant objects. That is, their connection to the Internet is provided far from everywhere.

Andrey Selsky: There are six pilot regions, and they will be the first to test the Physical Culture and Sports system. These are the Republic of Mordovia, the Republic of Tatarstan, Belgorod, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk regions and the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug.

We did not set clear criteria for selection and focused primarily on the level of digital maturity, interest and an active position on the part of the regions themselves. We were also attracted to those regions that are at the greenfield stage. For example, the Republic of Mordovia. So that we can test from scratch the services that are created at the federal level.

Andrei Selsky: On the one hand, yes. But, on the other hand, this does not cancel our work with those regions, regional systems and their data providers who already have their own technologies and experience. With them, we need to learn how to build interaction and data exchange. We assume that the federal information platform will not replace these regional systems, but will learn to interact with them.

Andrei Selsky: Yes, of course. There are different levels of regulatory documents. In March 2021, we probably took up the lowest and most specific of them, and in the near future we will submit a package of changes for approval.

Andrei Selsky: These are by-laws, orders of the ministry. I think we will not do without adjustments to the federal law "On Physical Culture and Sports of the Russian Federation. But that while we are working to expand the opportunities for digitalization from below, remove the barriers that stand.

Andrey Selsky: According to the current regulatory acts, any documents for the assignment of sports ranks and titles should be stored in paper for 75 years. The same applies to the protocols of the competition, which, in principle, can be formed electronically. If we translate the mechanism of assigning ranks and titles into machine-readable form, then clear criteria should be formed about what fact of performance of the athlete corresponds to this or that sports category. It is not always possible to do without the participation of a person in the consideration of a particular case. But if it is possible to automate the assignment of sports ranks and titles, then this will accelerate many other processes in the industry.

Andrei Selsky: The Ministry of Sports is in the middle category in terms of ratings.

Andrey Selsky: The tasks that were formulated concerned process automation, the withdrawal of services to the Unified Portal of Public Services.

Andrei Selsky: Yes, but, in fact, we are going along this path more slowly than planned. We had to go into great detail of the study, in connection with which the receipt of funds from the federal budget slowed down in order to really start creating something. We'll have to recoup.

Andrei Selsky: I am engaged in sports at the time that remains with me. I run, including in winter on cross-country skiing.

Andrei Selsky: No, there are no categories.

Andrey Selsky: DJ and everything related to electronic music. Running - I already mentioned him.

Andrey Selsky: I love different music. But it is in the electronic segment that I try to create my tracks and sets.