Cisco company, one of the Skolkovo Foundation's key partners, has announced the launch of an international competition involving innovations in the 'Internet of things' - the Cisco IoT Innovation Grand Challenge. According to Cisco, the competition is intended for start-ups with strong technological potential who are seeking investors prepared to support their inventions. Young entrepreneurs and innovators from various countries around the world, including Russia, have been invited to take part in it.
The Cisco IoT Innovation Grand Challenge is open to technological projects involving the development and use of solutions for the implementation of the 'Internet of things' concept in various fields, from healthcare to 'smart' cities. Projects can be entered into the competition in one of five categories: apps for business and end users, video analytics, controlling devices (including sensor-controlled devices), network infrastructure and on-line connections between inanimate objects.
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The competition will be held in three phases. In the first round, which is going to last until July 1, 2014, those wishing to take part in the Cisco IoT Innovation Grand Challenge must fill out an application containing a description of their idea and their answers to some questions from Cisco. At the end of the first round, 19 projects will be selected for the semi-finals. 18 of these projects will be selected by a jury, whilst the remaining project will be selected by means of a vote on the website. The international final, which will take place after an additional selection process, will feature just 6 projects.The results of the Cisco IoT Innovation Grand Challenge will be announced in mid-October after the final of the competition, in which the contestants will be required to present their projects in person to the jury. The winners will be announced at the 2014 Internet of Things World Forum in Chicago.
The three competition winners will receive awards in the form of grants from Cisco worth a combined total of 250,000 US dollars. This prize-money can be used to launch a new business or give a boost to an existing company in the field of the Internet of Things. In addition to the cash prizes, Cisco is promising to provide the winners with mentoring and training as well as access to any working tools they may require.
Representatives of Cisco commented that companies from Russia and other CIS countries often achieve outstanding results in international technological competitions. In 2008 there were two Russians in the team that won the global innovations competition Cisco I-Prize: Anna Gossen and Sergey Bessonnitsyn, who came up with a new way of using the web as a platform for energy-saving management systems.
Teams from Skolkovo have taken part in competitions organized by Cisco on numerous occasions. MedM (a platform for mobile monitoring of vital signs), which is a resident company in the Skolkovo Foundation's IT cluster, was given an award of 3 million rubles from Cisco, as well as support for its participation in the MWC exhibition in Barcelona.
According to Cisco's forecast, by 2020 there will be more than 50 billion devices on-line, and this will open up incredible prospects for the Internet of Things. The projects in this field will penetrate every walk of life and manufacturing sector, rebuild business processes, make them more efficient and help to introduce innovations in client services.