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Bauman Startups to Present Projects at SPIEF 2024 and Other Roscongress Foundation Events

The Roscongress Foundation’s Innovation Space project held a pitch session as part of the Russian Engineer Congress that was organized by Bauman Moscow State Technical University. Students and graduates from the university presented their startups to an expert panel in the format of five-minute speeches. The three best projects earned the right to be presented at Russia’s main congress and exhibition event – the 27th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which will take place on 5–8 June 2024.

Each project was evaluated based on three criteria: the content of the presentation, the convincingness of the answers to the panel’s questions, and the potential willingness of experts to invest in the development of the project.

The winners of the competition were the SMDuka laboratory, which produces kits to teach children and adults the basics of microelectronics, the Cyclop predictive video analytics system, and the MalevichArm online service, which can be used to sell paintings generated by a neural network and painted by a robot artist.

The pitch session proved to be a real springboard for other projects as well. In particular, the creators of the Bauman acoustic microphone camera system and Addon software (which is used to teach people how to work on industrial equipment) earned the right to attend the III Young Scientists Congress, which will be held on 28–30 November 2023 at Sirius Park of Science and Art. The ROSA cardiac diagnostic system will be presented at the Healthy Life Forum, which the Roscongress Foundation will organize in 2024, while solutions developed by Bauman students to clean firearms will be presented at the Goodwill Games in September next year.  

“The startups presented at the pitch session are part of different areas and are at different stages. Some of them already have a real product that can be offered to the market, while others are only at the initial stage of development. Nevertheless, all the projects are very interesting. We were pleasantly surprised by their quality and the energy of the teams, so we tried to make sure that all the kids had the opportunity to further develop. This is the goal of the Innovation Space: to create favourable conditions for young high-tech Russian companies,” said Dmitry Sryvkov, director of the Roscongress Foundation’s Department for Relations with the Innovation Sector.

“Based on the results of the pitch session, we must admit that we have gone beyond the traditional format of this event. In the style of a super-short ‘elevator pitch’ presentation, the team speakers were asked tough business questions by prominent experts from the venture industry – the [Internet Initiatives Development Fund], Roscongress Foundation, and Skolkovo. Sometimes it seemed like the questions were tearing the startup’s entire business model to shreds. But then, outside of the pitch [session], the same experts actually brainstormed, generated new ideas for the teams, and recommended product positioning and partners for collaborations in order for their development to take off. I believe that this particular result was the most valuable for the teams and I express my gratitude to the leadership and specialists of the Roscongress Foundation for organizing and holding this event and for their proposals on further joint initiatives,” said Pavel Drogovoz, vice rector for science and digital development at Bauman Moscow State Technical University.

Thus, all the startups received high praise, and most importantly, valuable recommendations from the professional members of the expert panel.

The projects were evaluated by Roscongress Foundation Deputy CEO Grigory Velikikh, Head of the Roscongress Foundation’s Department for Relations with the Innovation Sector Dmitry Sryvkov, Director of the Centre for the Development of Technological Entrepreneurship at Bauman Moscow State Technical University Viktor Malinin, Vice Rector for Science and Digital Development Pavel Drogovoz, Director for Operations of the Skolkovo Foundation’s Biological and Medical Technologies Cluster Vladimir Egorov, Investment Director of the Fund RC-Investments Sergey Bolshakov, and Development Director of the Internet Initiatives Development Fund Yevgeny Borisov.

The event was moderated by CROS Vice President for Strategic Communications Maria Yarina, an expert in PR, GR, and anti-crisis communications.