The Winner of CIG R&D LAB Educational Scholarship Program is Going to Receive 500 000 Hryvnias

27
June
2018

The winner of the final of CIG R&D LAB 2017-2018 educational scholarship program held by Cherno-vetskyi Investment Group and the Odessa National Polytechnic University became the project "In-verter Voltage Stabilizer", which will receive UAH 500,000 for the further project development.

The author of the project, a student of the Odessa Polytechnic University, Mykhailo Khimchenko, to-gether with his father Yuriy and the scientific director, university teacher Ihor Blinov, presented to the expert commission and viewers a ready-to-use device for mass production. The invention solves the problem of electric voltage fluctuations and unstable power supply and, it has been created primarily for gas boiler protection. The device has become a result of the work performed by the scholarship holder within 10 months of participation in the program.

According to the project`s authors, the number of the electrically controlled gas boilers in Ukrainian homes is about 7.5 million. And the problem of the protection of this voltage sensitive equipment is quite acute. The authors offer the domestic market a device at an affordable price (approximately UAH 4 000), which, by its technical characteristics and quality, does not yield to the high-cost Europe-an analogues.

In the battle for investments, four fellow teams of the Institute of Computer Systems of Odessa Na-tional Polytechnic University competed. In October 2017, they all became the winners of CIG R&D LAB qualifying round and won an annual scholarship. Over the course of 10 months, the teams had been working on their projects, receiving financial and mentor support from Chernovetskyi Investment Group. Among the finalists there were noteworthy and relevant projects: electronic deanery, remote control and electronic lock dispatching systems, as well as a science-based Eye Tracking technology for medical research.

"Participation in the program has become an important motivation for us. Thanks to the financial support of CIG, we were able to create the device, because it required a significant investment. With the help of experts, we have discovered a world of investment and business. Most importantly, we understand and feel that we can get support. Students need such programs, because the university may not always pro-vide the necessary financial and expert assistance in for ideas implementation. While working on the pro-ject, we had to intensively work out our management skills to combine university studies and the devel-opment of the device, we had to develop commitment, "- says the winner of the program, the student of the 3rd year Mikhailo Khimchenko.

"Our goal is providing students, who work in the IT sector, with the opportunity to create their own prod-ucts, own businesses, and to develop the country's economy. Our program is not just a monthly scholar-ship without any requirements for students, but a comprehensive approach: financial motivation for pro-ject development, encouragement of collaborative work with academic leaders within the educational re-search process, and mentor support from our experts. All this is important for the project to take place. We really saw the interest of the students of Odessa National Polytechnic University, and the results of the program suggest that our efforts were not in vain. We hope that there will be much more program partici-pants next year ", - emphasized CIG expert, program mentor Yevhen Netreba.

"We tried to make the program participants feel the taste of the business, to understand how everything works in real life, how the founders of the companies think, how to structure their own business properly. To a certain extent, we succeeded. Program participants have grown significantly over the course of 10 months. From the ideas and awareness of a particular vector of development, they came to a finished product. Half a million hryvnias of investment in the "Inverter Stabilizer" project was needed as nobody else, because they already have a finished product that can be offered to the market. We communicate with many startups all over the world and understand the realities: in order to establish ourselves as a country, it's important not to be a leader in separate services, such as IT outsourcing, but rather to create global products that will be needed worldwide. Our mission is to help young professionals create tomorrow's projects, change their outlook, so that they think not for 2 years in advance, but much longer. Then they will be able to do more for themselves, their families and the country", - said CIG expert, the program mentor Stanislav Zolotukhin.

Chernovetskyi Investment Group has already announced submit applications for the new sea-son of the CIG R&D LAB 2018-2019 program at the Odessa National Polytechnic University.

You can apply for the program at: https://goo.gl/1AaWBg

Learn more about the program on Facebook's CIG R&D Lab page https://www.facebook.com/CIG-RD-LAB-85443276805847...

Let us recall:

The task of CIG R&D LAB scholarship program is to create an effective motivation mechanism for con-ducting scientific and innovative developments by students and young scientists, as well as gaining the skills of idea and development commercialization, and experiencing mechanisms for the imple-mentation of the innovative projects. The pilot project program was designed for the 2017-2018 aca-demic year.

The Memorandum between CIG and the Odessa National Polytechnic University on the launch of the Education and Fellowship Program was signed in August 2017. Details: https://goo.gl/NcdY9m

Chernovetskyi Investment Group (CIG) — one of the largest investment companies in the CIS market, was founded in 2013, the investment potential is more than $100 million. The company's portfolio includes such Ukrainian IT-companies as: Eda.ua, (included in the Foodout Group), Doc.ua, Softcube and Zakaz.ua. Doc.ua and Zakaz.ua. The latter has become the programme member of the world-famous accelerator Techstars in Boston. In 2015 CIG invested $ 1 million in the platform for children KIDO'Z (Israel) and $ 1 million in the international service for bus ticket sale Busfor. In 2017, both an Indian project of ready-made-meal delivery, Inner Chef and Kray Technologies, the manufac-turer of commercial drones for agro-companies received investments.

Details: http://cig.vc/

The Odessa National Polytechnic University (ONPU) was founded in September 1918. Today about 20 000 students, interns, postgraduates and doctoral students study in the ONPU, about 4000 instruc-tors, researchers, engineers and technicians work there. Among them there are 57 academicians and corresponding members of state and branch Academies of Sciences of Ukraine, more than 120 pro-fessors and Doctors of Sciences, about 450 associate professors and Candidates of Sciences, 21 em-inent educators and an honored worker of science and technology of Ukraine, 13 academicians of international Academies. The University has prepared the graduates for more than 110 countries all over the world. More information at http://opu.ua