The Skolkovo project, in partnership with Cisco, handed out 5.25 million rubles ($175,000) to three winners of their jointly sponsored Skolkovo Innovation Prize competition. Moscow inventor Evgeny Smetanin, 50, walked away with first prize of 3 million rubles ($100,000) for his project on transforming children’s toys into modular robotic playing devices.
Second prize and 1.5 million rubles ($50,000) went to Novilab team (Dmitry Mikhailov, 25, and Mikhail Froimson, 22), also from Moscow. Novilab submitted a concept to replace computer mice with a user line of sight tracking system. Marta Yegorova, 25, a post-graduate student at the National Research Nuclear University MEPHI (Moscow) was awarded the third prize and 750,000 rubles ($25,000). Yegorova’s project on automated sorting for photographs based upon machine learning and adaptive technologies also received the people’s choice award during the awardsceremony held in Moscow on Monday, May 16.
According to the terms of the Skolkovo Innovation Prize contest, the winners are are under no obligations as to how they use the prize money. The challenge, sponsored by Cisco as a part of its global I-Prize competition for inventors, is intended to attract talented inventors to Skolkovo, the state-sponsored innovation hub under construction near Moscow. The Skolkovo Innovation Prize contest received a total of 2,318 submissions from a total of 10,681 participants, the organizing committee reported earlier.
Announced in 2010, the Skolkovo project aims to develop into Russia’s leading technology and innovation hub. Built around President Medvedev’s priorities for economic development and modernization, the project focuses on areas in information and communication technology as well as biotech, energy and nuclear technology. The project is managed and financed by a consortium of public and private organizations in Russia.
