Last week in China, Russian startup Wicron was awarded first prize in the robotics category of the Global Happiness Technology Challenge, the Skolkovo Foundation reported yesterday.
The startup presented a remote presence bot, christened ‘Webot,’ which allows users to observe the bot’s surroundings from their location via the Internet, an interact with people in those surroundings accordingly.
A resident from Skolkovo, the international tech hub under completion on the outskirts of Moscow, Wicron was created by two postgraduate students of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech), Dmitry Suvorov and Roman Zhukov.
In September 2014, the startup received a grant of 5 million rubles (some $130,000 at that time) to develop its robot.
“We have begun negotiations with Chinese companies to sell the Webot robots in China,” the Skolkovo Foundation quoted Suvorov as saying. “We sold one robot right there and then at the event, and reached an agreement with a Chinese company to represent us in Chinese exhibitions,” he said.
Held at the Tsinghua University Science Park, the Global Happiness Technology Challenge aims to support startups and tech companies whose inventions can change lives for the better.
Russian robots go East
“Asian countries like South Korea and Japan are leaders in the research and use of robotics,” believes Albert Yefimov, head of the Skolkovo Foundation’s Robocentre.
“China has also seen impressive successes: it’s the biggest market for industrial robots. Nevertheless, our robotics projects have learned how to break through into these hypercompetitive markets,” he said, citing the examples of Skolkovo resident EydosMedicina, whose robots help train doctors in Japan, and Promobot, which has sold more than 100 of its promotional robots in China.
“The success of our Skolkovo team at the Global Happiness Technology Challenge in China is also part of our innovators’ movement to the East,” said Yefimov.
Skolkovo is currently building up its relations with mainland China, and is in the process of opening representative offices in Beijing and Shanghai to help Skolkovo residents do business there. Last year the Russian tech hub signed a cooperation agreement with the major Chinese foundation Cybernaut Investment Group.
Skolkovo is also developing cooperation with Hong Kong, as East-West Digital News reported recently.
