The first students of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology met with Viktor Vekselberg, President of the Skolkovo Foundation in their Institute. The students spoke to Alexey Sitnikov, Vice-President of the Institute, Bram Caplan, Director of Student Affairs, Mats Hanson, Dean of Education, Sergey Zhukov, Director of the Skolkovo Space Cluster, and Alexander Chernov, Skolkovo Vice-President. The academic year is over and the first students have come back full of ideas, knowledge, and energy to their Alma Mater from Boston’s MIT, London Imperial College, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
You have spent a year in different universities, gained experience and understanding… and we do believe this experience allows you to believe that our great and beloved Russia will build up the university. This is a hard way but I hope that you feel capable of performing this taskthese were Viktor Vekselberg’s opening words.
The President of Skolkovo Foundation emphasised that the university is “the basis, the foundation, and the heart of the ecosystem, of our innovation field.”
Our Foundation is only two years old and the Institute of Science and Technology has already been created. It is working and functioning, an excellent team has been formed as well. The Foundation gathered professionals who have vast experience in similar educational and research centres all over the world. It is not a myth any more but rather it is a real functioning team with deans, professors, and researchers.Viktor Vekselberg.
The Head of the Skolkovo Foundation reminded us that there are also rather ambitious plans for the university. Fifteen R&D centres are going to be established in the near future.
Five more R&D centres are expected to be formed this year. Competition is high, we received 150 applications during the yearViktor Vekselberg said.
Addressing the students he highlighted his openness to consider any offers, "which can keep people who are talented and capable like you from thinking of leaving Russia and trying to realise your potential somewhere else. We want to know what is truly important for you and what you have gained abroad as well,” he added.
Bram Caplan, Dean of Student Affairs, as a presenter, demonstrated the first group of students’ achievements. He introduced the teams of young innovators who were split up according to the location of their universities and the projects they created at their universities. As part of this educational programme everyone was obligated to create their own project, for example, a prototype of a start-up.
Prior to this so-called pitch session Bram Caplan expressed his hope that the projects and their creators someday would turn into Skolkovo innovation center residents.
And then something quite unexpected occurred. Students’ projects happened to be so serious and elaborate that some of them were planned to be implemented directly at Skolkovo.
The SmartStop Project was the first on the agenda. It presents a network of remotely controlled 22-inch touch-screens to be placed at public transportation stops in Moscow. The screens can demonstrate animated advertising units, bus timetables, weather forecasts, etc.
The advantages of the project are obvious but there are still lots of uncertainties: anti-vandal protection, competitors in the commercial displays segment, etc. Nevertheless it was decided the project was rather mature and it should be presented to the Mayor of Moscow using the “administrative resources”, which the Foundation as a governmental project has at its hand.
The team which studied at London Imperial College and had an opportunity to work in the Thin Films Laboratory prepared a project of a device which is able to collect infrared energy with up to 90% efficiency. Moreover, the device can work at night as it is able to collect warmth from the ground and warmth accumulated during the day time.
The team from MIT with the TAP Deck project - receipt of presentation slides (i.e. original files of slides, not their photos) by mobile phone - demonstrated the project which won the US student competition Hackathon 3000-dollar prize. The team, as far as we know, has already gained the right to implement their application programme at all events planned to take place in Hypercube.
The projects are "a feast for the eyes". Remember how troublesome it was to show through Skype any document with lots of graphics. You won’t have such problems any more. The Skoltech application to Skype named SkyPaper lets you get the image that your contact person drew on paper before the webcam almost with the same quality as if he/she sent you a file with graphs. The students came up with the idea to create this file through creating a coordinate system of a sheet and a drawing on paper. The webcam reads out the coordinates of the drawing, not the drawing itself, and then the application draws it again anew on your screen.
Easy Wallet is one more application developed by Skoltech students. It can help you easily control your expenditures and income which are sent to your mobile phone in the form of an SMS. You get such an SMS while you are using your bank card.
Furthermore, the students enthusiastically told each other about the projects they have designed for the famous MIT special course on new product creation. The students were faced with the following task and conditions: the students were divided into groups, each of the group was given 6500 dollars on which by the end of the semester they had to create a completely new product, a product which did not exist at all on the market and had never existed before. But this product has to fill a consumer niche and has to be useful for people. Our students managed to pass this test successfully (we know about such tasks from the fairy-tale “Go to a place you don’t know”) having created two products in one go. Bike-guider, one of these products, has already been noted by New-York bicycle suppliers and providers. Bike-guider is a special device which is attached to a bicycle frame and can receive a signal from a mobile phone with a navigator turned on, and then transmit this signal in the form of vibration to the bicycle grips. So, a biker receives the signal showing when and where he/she has to turn without looking at the navigator, which improves safety. The second group of students created a special device to wash trash containers. The device has been taken by MIT and presented to a garbage collector. So, the second group got credit and was individually thanked by MIT campus services.
Students’ presentations created a positive atmosphere. Optimism could be felt in Viktor Vekselberg’s comments who at the same time reminded the youth that “however there were more skeptics than optimists in the world which makes us feel deep down inside a desire to prove the skeptics wrong”. Optimism and belief in students could be felt in the Foundation offers made to the young innovators.
Each of you is an agent of our philosophy and beliefs, approach to life, science, education; you will have to be patient to a certain degree in order to prove everybody that the success of Skolkovo is your success. And your success is our successViktor Vekselberg.
He advised students to keep their eye on the prize at all times as “it can be harder to implement projects in Russia versus abroad” and listened to students’ offers concerning the ideas of top foreign technological universities that according to the students should be implemented here.
Alexander Chernov, Skolkovo Vice-President, who spoke next, said that the project of reading out slides from presentations could be deemed to have been accepted for Hypercube:
Those who are included in Hypercube will automatically become users of this slide viewing system. As to the bike-guider project we can buy bicycles and use them for guided tour in Skolkovo. We can use the device to wash trash containers as well. All these developments are excellent and they have been designed here, within our ecosystemAlexander Chernov.
Sergey Zhukov, Director of Skolkovo Space Cluster, said that space technology was undergoing a renaissance and it needed new people.
If you have bright brain space technology is for you. I am impressed by your charm and temperament and the success you achieved within six months is impressivehe added.
Sergey Zhukov and almost all speakers noted the high quality of the presentations made by the students. He mentioned that they had improved their skills significantly having acquired excellent skills which will come in hand on the long and windy road of start-up creation.
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