The MTS social investment strategy is complementary to the MTS ESG-strategy and is aimed at solving the social problems of society using digital technologies and MTS system opportunities.

We focus on solving both local and global issues, therefore the strategy is based on the National Development Objectives of the Russian Federation and the UN SDG. MTS is distinguished by broad use of involvement mechanics in implementing social programs, we try to attract a wide pool of representatives from the local expert and professional communities, as well as volunteers.

We continue to follow these principles of social investment, which are formed on the basis of analyzing the current society needs, including in the regions of the company presence, internal expertise, and also the best practices in the sphere of sustainability.

MTS social investment principles:

• Continuity, sustainability. The Company focuses its ESG efforts on implementing the National Goals, the UN SDGs in the areas most complementary to the business strategy
• Performance Efficient. solving of social problems using high-tech services and our own ecosystem expert knowledge
• Public Involvement. Each citizen has the opportunity to make a personal contribution, together with MTS, to solve relevant community problems thereby helping to implement long-term, targeted programs of the highest quality in synergy with society
• Partnership. MTS develops the practice of partnership and cross-sector interaction, thus achieving synergy of interests in solving social issues
• Localization. We tailor our initiatives precisely at the local level, considering the context and needs of the particular region
• Efficacy. We determine the system of KPIs for social programs and monitor the KPI implementation on a regular basis.

All areas of MTS social programs have a digital basis – we engineer, integrate and provide various services and solutions to develop society life areas.

• Digital development of communities. Solving relevant social issues by technologies
• Education. Children and youth intellectual and creative development
• Digital enlightenment. Training of the population in the correct use of modern technologies and increased level of financial literacy
• Culture. Preservation, promotion of unique cultural values
• Inclusion. Support for developing an inclusive environment
• Health and wellness. Support for socially vulnerable groups of the population, businesses and local communities
• Environment. Environmental protection due to ecotourism development and environmental enlightenment

More detailed information is available in the MTS Group Sustainability Report for 2024: chapter “Corporate Social Responsibility”, section “Local Communities”

Supporting digital development of communities

MTS considers the matters of developing the territories of operation in a comprehensive paradigm of supporting social, economic, cultural, financial and economic, investment and other areas. The MTS strategic goal in social investment is to improve the quality of life of different communities by providing a wide range of digital services and developing innovations.

Our goal is to contribute to solve public problems with the help of digital technology and capabilities of the MTS ecosystem. We involve a broad group of experts and volunteers to implement our social programs. Regional communities with their needs often contact us. If we see that a problem may be solved using MTS digital technology, we create a project and start its implementation.

Digital projects to support regional communities

Audio guides for independent travel in Russia

A project promoting the development of domestic tourism through digital services with unique content. Within the project, MTS involves the local population, that is, enthusiasts, local history experts, historians and journalists, in creating “people’s” digital audio guides. To date, MTS has created 84 guides (8 in 2024) in the regions of the country that were have already been used by over a million people. In addition to traditional walking tours, we offer unusual car and water routes; all routes are free and available on the MTS Live digital platform.

Key 2024 project results:

• A project of river tours “Volga Stories” was implemented to travel on the Volga in Astrakhan, Rybinsk and Nizhny Novgorod.
• Digital audio guides were launched: City legends of Toropets, “Merchant Sterlitamak”, City legends of Kungur, “Kazan – Bolgar” in Tatar, “Kazan – Sviyazhsk”.

“Power Place” Project

MTS helps national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and urban areas to identify opportunities for using innovative technologies (including video surveillance with elements of AI and Big Data) and MTS ecosystem products for environmental awareness, tourism development, unique flora and fauna preservation, as well as ensuring the safety of protected areas. Eighteen socially useful products were designed within the “Power Place” Project, such as VR films, digitized content for museums, educational materials with AR elements and audio guides) were created.

Preservation of cultural identity

Digitization of cultural and historical heritage objects to share knowledge with future generations. The field is being implemented together with the residents of the regions of Russia, volunteers, partners and other participants.

In 2024, two complex projects were implemented to support the culture and heritage of small indigenous peoples – AR-books of Russian indigenous peoples’ fairytales were published and posted in the Lines app: “Living Legends of Buryatia” and “Living Legends of the North”, the book hard copies were sent by MTS to regional and school libraries of the Far Eastern Federal District, Siberian Federal District and Ural Federal District.

Small entrepreneurship support

MTS creates the necessary conditions for developing entrepreneurship in the regions by providing access to the necessary resources and support for entrepreneurs at different stages of their business. Within the area, MTS supports educational events in the regions of Russia for developing small and medium business, organizing business accelerators.

• MTS continues to support business accelerators for female entrepreneurs Lady007, which are held by JLLC Women of Business in Russian Federation regions. The educational program includes around 20 webinars from leading MTS experts and other companies, as well as group discussions with certified mentors. The female entrepreneurs receive new applied knowledge on building effective business models and marketing trends, but could also consult with famous experts and meet each other.
• MTS together with the Association “Developers and Operators of Electronic Services Systems” implements the project “EDF Culture”. This is a series of interactive workshops in online and offline format for the entrepreneurs and representatives of companies to introduce and develop electronic document flow (EDF). In 2024, within the project “ECF Culture”, four workshops were held, with an audience of over 1,000 people. In the interactive workshops, the leaders of the market analyzed the successful examples of business processes digitization, and also studied the growth points for further scaling of the effective solutions in the market.

Support for IT education

We understand the importance of helping society adapt to new realities and find opportunities for development in the digital environment, therefore the creation of high-quality educational tools for various audiences is one of MTS priorities.

MTS actively implements educational projects for a wide circle of the public, and also develops the professional community – MTS True Tech Community, where the leaders of industry and beginning experts exchange experience and expertise, improve their professional level, and the broad audience familiarizes itself with the existing IT areas, learns about their use in business and science.

MTS True Tech Community

MTS True Tech Community is a large-scale initiative of MTS Digital Company, aimed at developing the IT community in Russia. For the domestic market, True Tech Community is a unique project that unites both the existing professional community and the future participants in the IT market, offering them a platform for networking, training and career development. The events of the community combine educational tracks, interactive formats and informal communication, which makes them attractive for a broad audience.

To implement the concept, MTS used various formats of the events that are related to each other on the basis of the construction set principle, from writing a program to planning sites. In 2024, the company held 30 events under the program in the capital and regions of the Russian Federation that include a technology conference, IT-Olympic Games and festival, hackathon, IT-camp, and also online and offline community containing more than 20 specialized guilds.

• The international conference True Tech Day was held in Moscow in May 2024 in online and offline formats and united more than 85 thousand participants, interested in the opportunities for development in the IT sphere.
• The Olympic Games True Tech Champ https://truetechchamp.ru enables schoolchildren and students to assess their level of IT expertise, and win the opportunity to have a paid internship in the company
• True Tech Hack hackathon https://truetechday.ru/hack provides the beginning and professional experts with the opportunity to participate in solving relevant social problems using digital technology and products.
• The summer camp True Tech Camp https://truetechcamp.ru is an informal summer event for networking of IT experts with spectacular educational content.

IT-festival “Sistema FEST” in Tomsk for development of IT skills

In April 2024, MTS held a sociocultural festival in Tomsk – “Sistema FEST”, supported by the Sistema Charity Foundation and Tomsk State University. The festival united more than 650 in-person participants and thousands of participants online in enlightenment, career guidance and sociocultural events. The point of attraction on the festival main day was the MTS True Tech Hub space in Tomsk State University, where the business and educational program was held, the participants studied innovative trends in the open dialogs “Contact with Technology” from the leading MTS IT experts. The participants in MTS “Clear System: Make Complicated Understandable” hackathon tried to use in practice the IT skills, where 40 teams developed a system for adapting complex or specialized bank texts into clear wordings for various inclusive audiences: people with mental peculiarities, elderly people and foreigners.

Master’s program “Studies and entrepreneurship in artificial intelligence”

In September 2024, MTS launched the master’s program on “Studies and entrepreneurship in artificial intelligence” at the computer science department in the Higher School of Economics. The purpose of the program is to train the experts who will create innovative products, using cutting-edge methods of machine and in-depth training. The program includes large language models, generative neural networks, and tools of computer science and natural language recognition. The program is designed for graduates of the bachelor’s program/specialty of mathematical, technical and IT departments, and also for everyone who is interested in studies and start-ups in the area of artificial intelligence.

The course duration is two years, the training form is in-person. The funding by MTS covers the cost of education fully.

MTS competition, the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sistema Charity Foundation for young scientists

The competition for young scientists timed to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is held by the Sistema Charitable Foundation and the Russian Academy of Sciences with the support of the MTS digital ecosystem, Federal Intellectual Property Service (Rospatent) and leading Russian technological companies. The competition is aimed at supporting innovative scientific developments and recent studies in the priority industries of economy: chemical industry, agriculture, pharmaceutical industry, electronics, power engineering, digital technology sphere. In 2024, the competition winners were the authors of 16 scientific developments from 9 regions of Russia selected from 347 papers representing 45 regions of the country.

The competition made it possible to both identify and support the promising young scientists and enable them to gain new knowledge in terms of intellectual property protection – the lecture hall for the competitors was set up by the Rospatent leading experts, who covered the main issues of patenting and selection of the strategy for reliable protection of developments.

Support for the Sistema Charitable Foundation Scholarship Program

The scholarship competition “Sistema” held by MTS Digital Ecosystem and Sistema Charitable Foundation for the students of vocational education and universities is aimed at supporting the practice-oriented research, scientific and innovative activities of the motivated youth in the priority areas of scientific and technological development, assistance in its participation in developing and implementing projects aimed at developing the real sector of economy, support in employment and getting the first job. In 2024, more than 18 thousand people from 77 regions of Russia participated in the scholarship competition.. The winners of the program were 48 university students and two vocational education institution students from 28 regions of Russia. The finalists will receive financial and methodological support to carry out their projects, and also the opportunity to get their first professional experience in the program partner companies.

Educational shift “Elevator to the Future” in Ocean All-Russian Children’s Center

“Elevator to the Future” program in the Ocean All-Russian Children’s Center for the third year in a row is held within the flagship project of the same name of the Sistema Charitable Foundation and MTS digital ecosystem. Educational programs, where the schoolchildren “try on” the promising professions and meet the industry leaders, have once again become the points for establishing a strong link “school – university/vocational education – employer”. For the three weeks, the program participants from 28 regions of Russia tried themselves in the role of scientists, learned the most interesting things about modern professions and technology, met the representatives from leading Russian companies and built their own “City of the Future”.

Digital enlightenment

Within this strategic goal, MTS implements programs using digital technology to improve access to high-quality additional education for the residents of remote regions of the country, and also the level of knowledge of the wide audience on cutting-edge technology and methods for their deliberate and safe consumption in modern society for education and self-development.

MTS is concerned about creating conditions for increasing digital and financial literacy in society. It is important for us that every society member gets access to the technologies and opportunities of the modern world. MTS implements projects to improve digital literacy for completely different age groups.

Projects for children and teenagers

“Generation M” is Russia’s largest educational platform created by the MTS digital ecosystem to develop children’s creativity in the digital environment. “Generation M” platform helps young experts gain experience of interaction with digital technology in a creative environment. With IT technologies, the project participants take educational courses in various creative disciplines guided by experienced teachers, experts in art, technical, IT and creative industries, as well as develop important versatile skills. “Generation M” allows gaining the first practical experience of interacting with digital technologies in a creative environment: working with real issues, trying oneself in popular creative jobs. The “Generation M” program is included among the global practices recognized by the UN as advanced in achieving Sustainable Development Goals. The total number of the views for the educational courses on the platform in 2024 was 10 million, and 10,086 people received course completion certificates.

In 2024, the “Generation M” platform launched 7 educational tracks with the help of the MTS ecosystem capabilities:

• Digital format of entry exams to the Russian University of Theatre Arts on MTS Link platform
• Web-design school with MTS Digital
• Course on digital fashion with RTC and MTS AI
• New music laboratory with MTS Label and MTS Music
• Course on Internet of Things with IoT
• Exhibition of generative art in the Russian Museum with CloudMTS
• Content-making school with NUUM

Alliance for Protecting Children in the Digital Environment

MTS, along with the largest companies operating in the field of information technology, is a co-founder of the Alliance for Protecting Children in the Digital Environment. The goal of the Alliance is to facilitate creating a safe and healthy digital space for children where they can have fun online, develop cyber literacy knowledge and communicate online without the risk of being exposed to dangerous or illegal information.

MTS media enlightenment projects

The MTS Media online platform – media.mts.ru – posts informative, educational and helpful content. The publications are primarily targeted at improving digital literacy, as well as at information and applied assistance in understanding technological transformation.

Financial literacy

MTS FinTech helps build a conscious and responsible approach to creating a personal and family budget, and also teaches digital hygiene and the use of modern online financial services. To combat digital ignorance, MTS FinTech conducts workshops, trainings, lessons and other enlightenment programs for a wide audience of all ages in online and offline formats, and also develops the enlightenment project “Financial Literacy for Everyone!”.

Charitable activities

The charitable activities of the MTS Group are a continuation of the Company business strategy and social strategy and are governed by the Policy “MTS Charitable Activities”. The document establishes the basic principles for planning and implementing charitable activities of the MTS Group, as well as the rights and obligations of the Company employees and subdivisions within such activities.

Principles of MTS charitable activities

• legality and ethics
• system approach
• openness and transparency
• zero tolerance towards any manifestations of corruption
• political indifference
• control over using funds

In 2024, we continued active cooperation with charities and other non-profit organizations. A significant part of charitable activities by MTS are carried out thanks to donations to the Sistema Charity Foundation. This model promotes resource synergy and larger-scale of project implementation, including through association with other foundation philanthropists. Cooperation and expert support of MTS also contribute to developing the flagship educational project of the Sistema Charity Foundation, “Elevator to the Future,” an all-Russian career guidance platform that helps improve career opportunities for residents of all ages.

Key charitable projects of MTS Group in 2024

MTS. IT CONCERNS US

An end-to-end product that introduces charitable practices into the Company’s ecosystem and encourages users to join in solving social problems under the program of cashback write-off for charity to the non-profit organizations that implement consistent charitable programs for relevant problems. For the reporting 2024 year, the users of the MTS Cashback app made more than 165 thousand donations of cashback for charitable purposes for the total amount of more than RUB 54 million.

Also, the “MTS. It concerns us” program launched several additional initiatives:

• Launching of the complex charitable project to help the victims of spring flooding in various regions of Russia by writing off MTS cashback. RUB 3.5 million were raised for the non-profit organizations of Orenburg and Orsk (support for families who need to rebuild their homes after spring flooding)
• Launching of a complex charitable project to support the residents in the near-border territories. MTS offered to the MTS Cashback program customers to write off the cashback to charitable organizations that implement support programs for near-border territories residents. This initiative raised RUB 3.6 million.

MTS. TIMEOUT

In 2024, MTS Pay and charitable foundation that supports deaf-blind people “Co-unite” launched a charitable promotion “Timeout” to support families with hearing and vision impaired children. The project enables families with deaf-blind children to use a professional nanny who will take care of a child for some time, and to spend the available time for their urgent needs. Under the project, whoever donates on the charitable marketplace https://mtspay.so-edinenie.org/ will get an individual promocode for MTS Premium subscription for 30 days. During 2024, the project raised RUB 1.7 million of donations, 40 families received help thanks to the project.

PROGRAM “GIVE GOOD!”

A program of targeted assistance to dangerously ill children that MTS implements in partnership with charitable foundations. All digital activities of users of the MTS “Generation M” digital platform are converted into money, that the Company gives annually to treat dangerously ill children.

Environment

Environmental awareness programs

Popularization of the culture of conscious consumption, ecology, development of environmental volunteering and ecotourism is also done through state-of-the-art digital technology. The coverage of the MTS educational and enlightenment content on the environmental topic in online and offline formats is more than 2 million people.

Compensatory plantings

In 2024, MTS planted more than 40,000 cedar seedlings on 13 hectares of the Altai Republic forest area as part of reforestation. In addition, MTS, with the support of the Sistema Foundation, implemented a project for compensatory planting of spruce and pine trees in the Chelyabinsk, Voronezh and Kurgan regions — a total of 14,750 trees were planted.