The directors of three Skolkovo startups won awards at two ceremonies this week for their innovative tech developments.
Group-IB head Ilya Sachkov at a previous EY awards ceremony. Photo: EY.
Ilya Sachkov, head of the cybersecurity company Group-IB, won EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year award in the business information protection category, and Natalya Galkina, director general of NeuroTrend, which uses neuromarketing technologies to study consumer choices, won the same award in the high tech category on Wednesday evening. In the Made in Russia awards organised by Snob magazine the same evening, Ekaterina Bereziy, CEO of medical exoskeleton maker ExoAtlet, won the science and technology category.
Sachkov, whose company Group-IB investigates about 80 percent of high-profile cybercrimesin Russia and the CIS, has twice previously won EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year awards, and in January 2016, he was included in Forbes list of 30 Under 30 in Enterprise Tech.
Ekaterina Bereziy holding her Made in Russia award. Photo: ExoAtlet.
The company’s work is not limited to post-crime investigations: Group-IB has developed advanced threat intelligence systems to analyse a company’s weak spots and predict what form an attack might take, thereby helping to prevent them.
“The story of Ilya Sachkov and Group-IB is an example of a real-life success story: a simple lad from [the Moscow district of] Izmailovo without connections or rich parents teamed up with his fellow university students to create a detective startup that now produces cutting-edge technology for the prevention of cybercrime, and conducts investigations into the world’s most high profile cases,” Group-IB wrote in a message to the company’s followers on Telegram after the award was announced.
“This is a story about a dream coming true, an unbreakable will and the rejection of evil in all its manifestations,” wrote the company, a resident of the Skolkovo Foundation’s IT cluster.
Nor was it the first award for Bereziy and her company ExoAtlet, which makes medical exoskeletons that can help people who have lost the use of their legs to walk again. Last year, ExoAtlet won the RBC media group’s award for the Breakthrough of the Year, and earlier this year, Bereziy was included in the Young Global Leaders Class of 2017 compiled by the World Economy Forum.
“It’s believed that Russia can develop technology, but then only a few items are made using these technologies,” Bereziy told Sk.ru following her latest accolade.
“That’s why I think it’s important to note that ExoAtlet has already produced and sold about 60 exoskeletons. Our task is to manufacture exoskeletons by the hundreds: we’re focused on the mass production of a hi-tech product designed by scientists, engineers and specialists in control systems in Russia, and produced in Russia. At the same time, we also plan to localize production in other countries,” she said.
Bereziy said her entire team was proud to have won the Made in Russia award.
“It’s also a prize for our doctors who worked on developing the methodology for treatment and for using the exoskeletons as a new trend and a new area of rehabilitation. As scientists, marketing experts, engineers and constructors, we are creating this field, but doctors are also taking part in this process to ensure it is used correctly and as effectively as possible. The combination of the project and the methodology enable us to expect that many people in different countries who have lost their motor function will be able to restore it.”
Earlier this year, the company – another resident of Skolkovo’s IT cluster – obtained certification to use and sell its exoskeletons in South Korea, and later raised $2 million in private investment and state grants.