On October 26-28, the XI Festival of Innovative Projects "Sikorsky Challenge 2022: Innovative Transformation of Ukraine" was held at the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute.
Representatives of the government, committees of the Verkhovna Rada, domestic and foreign innovative companies, diplomatic missions, partner universities took part in the work of the Festival.
Innovation in War: What Has Changed at Sikorsky Challenge 2022
The focus of this year's Sikorsky Challenge is on the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine. Therefore, the vast majority of presented projects were created for the needs of the state.
"If in past years we hardly cooperated with budget funds and with state institutions, then this year defense, infrastructure, IT, and cyber security are the main areas. That is why ministers, deputy ministers, deputies of the Verkhovna Rada, and representatives of the Presidential Office joined us. The urgent need is to build an innovative economy," comments Inna Maliukova, Head of the All-Ukrainian Innovation Ecosystem “Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine”.
Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine - Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk emphasized the need to mobilize resources from business and foreign partners, and promised to draw the government's attention to the importance of developing platforms such as the Sikorsky Challenge.
"We need to combine our capabilities as a state, the capabilities of investors and governments of other states, Ukrainian-Polish enterprises that could use startups in joint projects. I know that there are absolutely determined companies and the Polish government that really want this to happen, as well as Japan, the USA and Great Britain," Vereshchuk said.
The Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the All-Ukrainian Innovation Ecosystem Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine Vic Korsun (USA) wished the Festival fruitful work.
Presenting the Platform for Innovative Transformation of Ukraine on the basis of the All-Ukrainian Innovation Ecosystem at the festival, Rector of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Scientific leader of the All-Ukrainian Innovation Ecosystem “Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine” (SCU) Michael Zgurovsky reminded the audience of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s words, that he said in May: "The post-war reconstruction of Ukraine should become such a historical example, as the reconstruction of European countries after the Second World War. This will be an investment in the stability of the entire Central and Eastern Europe."
"Our main goal," the rector said, "is to join this ambitious program in the component of finding innovations, inventions and startups, promoting them to domestic and foreign markets, which would accelerate the restructuring and innovative transformation of Ukraine."
After all, before the war, the Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine ecosystem united 25 startup schools in 20 regions of Ukraine. Innovation clusters of regions emerged around them, high-tech companies, banks, funds, and local authorities rallied. The Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine ecosystem is becoming more and more famous in the world: three representative offices of Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine have been opened in the USA, two in Israel, two in Azerbaijan, two in China, and one in Poland.
The main tasks in this period are to strengthen ties between business, science and the state to speed up the solution of technological problems in cities and regions, the development of ideas and innovations, Michael Zgurovsky noted. The participants of the project should be high-tech innovative companies, associations and investment funds. And the factories of ideas are universities and scientific institutions of Ukraine.
Main Events, Topics, Pitching: How the Festival Was Held
The main events of the Festival were the International Forum “The Platform for Innovation Transformation of Ukraine based on the All-Ukrainian Innovation Ecosystem “Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine” and the traditional competition of finalist projects of the Festival, held in the sections: "Defense and Security. Aviation and space", "Infrastructure and industrial hi-tech", "Information technologies, digital country, cyber security", "Biomedical engineering and human health" and "Environmental and energy security".
Pitch presentations took place all three days both in the presence of contestants and online.
Within the framework of the Festival, a round table meeting “Incubation of freedom for Ukraine – Adaptation of women to the digital economy” was held, it was moderated by Ms. Bianka Siwiński, executive director of the Perspektywy Education Foundation (Poland).
Sikorsky Challenge Junior: KPI School of Creativity worked every day at the Festival.
At the solemn closing of the XI Festival of Innovation Projects "Sikorsky Challenge 2022: Innovative Transformation of Ukraine", it was reported that 502 participants took part in it, 188 projects were submitted to the competition, and 75 teams made it to the finals.
The International Jury was traditionally headed by the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the All-Ukrainian innovation ecosystem Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine Vic Korsun (USA).
According to the results of the competition of innovative projects, the winners were recognized in each of the sections by nominations: "The best project idea", "The best technological solution", "The best solution to the problems of potential customers", "The best business model".
The general sponsors of the innovation ecosystem of Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine are the companies "Freedom broker Europe", "Boeing Ukraine", TRANSFOTECH and Chongqing University of Technology.
Some projects received honors and awards from the Orange Pavers company, of the Leonid Kuchma Presidential Foundation “Ukraine”, and the GIST program.
The prize-winners of the Competition sign Protocols of Intentions with investors and start preparing for the joint implementation of their projects.
"Our task is to make projects as close to business as possible. Taking into account how much business is interested in these projects, it finds what it needs," Oleksii Strutsynskyi, Director of the Innovation Holding "Sikorsky Challenge", noted, addressing partners and investors.
"Together with our partners and investors, we are sure that the movement through innovation will turn Ukraine into a prosperous, high-tech and protected country. That's why this project was started," concluded Michael Zgurovsky, Rector of National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”.