MOSCOW, June 29. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday will attend the third annual forum Strong Ideas For A New Time organized by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI).

The forum’s mission is to find and support projects geared to strengthen the country’s sovereignty and promote its comprehensive development.

The president is expected to speak at the forum’s plenary session. During the session, there will be the presentation of ideas that received the highest expert appraisal. The initiatives are divided into three blocks: digital and technological development, social sphere, and economy and business. The ideas will be presented by ASI Director General Svetlana Chupsheva, presidential envoy for digital and technological development Dmitry Peskov, and CEO of VEB.RF State Development Corporation Igor Shuvalov.

This year, a record-breaking number of initiatives - nearly 24,000 - were advanced, with most of them being well-elaborated, offering "unexpected solutions making it possible to improve living standards in various spheres," according to Chupsheva. That is why it was decided to increase the number of finalists from 100 to 250.

Another novelty of this year’s forum is a contest of Russian brands, which was organized at the instruction of the Russian president. The contest is tasked to demonstrate the spectrum of Russian products and services, tune a systemic mechanism for their support at the level of the federal government, regional authorities, and development institutes.

Before the beginning of the session, Putin will walk about the exhibition of prize-winning brands.

Thursday is the forum’s second day. On Wednesday, participants presented their ideas to investors. Apart from that, there were several sessions on such topics as the development of unmanned aerial systems and their use in agriculture, monitoring and logistics, and the consolidation of the efforts of businesses and the government to resolve social and other problems.

Putin heads the ASI supervisory board and traditionally takes part in the agency’s events. At the previous forum, the president lauded the ASI’s mechanism for the search, selection and support for civilian projects and initiatives. He pledged the government’s further support.

The first Strong Ideas For A New Time forum was held in November 2020, the second one - in July 2022. More than 300,000 people from 85 regions have been registered on the crowd platform and more than 57,000 ideas have bee published over three years. Authors of the best ideas were invited to the forum’s offline part in 2020 and 2022. Twenty ideas with the biggest potential were presented by the authors to the president.

TASS is the forum’s general information partner.