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This week, at Samara University, there was a meeting, during which the students presented their startups in the field of unmanned autonomous systems to the experts. For the first time, student projects were evaluated at such a high expert level: Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, Governor of the Samara Region, representatives of regional authorities, business, and top managers of the region’s leading enterprises in the field of UAS and rocket engineering gave their recommendations, critical comments, and advice to the young people.
Addressing the participants, the head of the region thanked them for their work. Let’s recall that during one of the meetings with students of Samara University Vyacheslav Fedorishchev promised to take part in the work of the open platform where their developments would be presented.
Vladimir Bogatyrev, Rector of Samara University, added, “Our students have been preparing their presentations and technology demonstrators for several months. Today we will hear their reports. I hope for an active discussion that will help our startup applicants”.
During the meeting, the young innovators presented their projects, most of which are being implemented in the field of unmanned aviation systems and rocket engineering. And it is not accidental: this field is a priority in the Samara Region. In the province, the regional centre for UAS research and production “Samara”, with 55 companies from 21 Russian regions as residents, the first one in Russia, has been established.
“For the Samara Region, the industry of unmanned aviation systems is the most promising one. We are confidently developing this area”, emphasized Vyacheslav Fedorishchev. “Our next step is establishing a world-class Intelligent Unmanned Aviation Systems Centre. By 2030, almost 2 billion rubles will be allocated for creating and implementing intelligent technologies in the field of UAS development, production and operation”.
A number of projects presented by young innovators were supported within the framework of the competition “Student Startup” of the Federal Project “Platform of University Technological Entrepreneurship”. Most of the students have completed the acceleration program “Space for Life”, which was organized with the regional government’s support.
The schedule for students to speak at the University’s venue was dynamic: the young people had three minutes to present the project and 4 minutes more to answer questions from potential investors.
One of the presented projects was the nanosatellite platform “Phaeton” by student Vadim Ignatiev. This development was supported by the Foundation for Innovation Promotion. Based on “Phaeton”, it is possible to create cubesat satellites with artificial intelligence on board. A special neural network running on a microcomputer will be able to analyze and process data directly in orbit, which will significantly speed up transferring the information to the Earth due to effective data compression. “The goal of the project is to offer universities and research institutions in need of creating their own nanosatellite a more modern and efficient platform that makes it possible to assemble a spacecraft of the required configuration in a short time”, said Vadim.
Another project has been developed by Vladislav Pelevin, a Master’s degree student: it is a high-resource micro-gas-turbine engine for unmanned aerial vehicles and gliders of ultralight aviation of aircraft and combined types. The laboratory prototype is already ready for testing. According to the young man, the main advantage of his development is the localization of the production and the increased resource due to the lower cost of operation and further maintenance. “As technology entrepreneurs, we expect information and advisory, infrastructural support from potential partners, as well as assistance in lobbying our interests”, addressed Vladislav the audience.
The participants of the meeting considered the young people’s business ideas very carefully, evaluated them in terms of competitiveness and viability, uniqueness, the possibility of entering the market as soon as possible, and asked the students a direct question, “Why invest in you?”
According to the expert community, a number of startups need serious improvement, and there are also those that, following the presentation, received support and further consulting support from RCC Progress JSC, Transport Budushchego LLC, DeltaTech LLC and Sber.
At the end of the discussion, the head of the region stressed the importance of involving students in technological entrepreneurship, and gave the innovators his parting message, “It is necessary to maximize your efforts where you see a competitive advantage, where you can work together with state-owned companies, with private businesses that successfully produce millions of unmanned systems. It is important to be not only in the plane of scientific research and theoretical work, but also in the plane of commercialization”.
The meeting resulted in receiving their own individual development trajectory by each of the projects presented by the students.
Photo by: Olesya Orina
