Artificial intelligence, or AI, as it is often abbreviated, is probably the fastest growing scientific and technological field in comparison to other IT industries and breakthrough areas of innovation. The scope of its application is constantly growing: AI is already serving people in agriculture and industry, medicine and transport, marketing and sociology, etc. And this range is expanding almost every month. For our country, its potential for use in the defence sector is particularly important today. 

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This rapid development has been facilitated by the intensive growth of computer capabilities and capacities and the emergence of new tools for their use. These were discussed at the opening of the International Forum ‘Artificial Intelligence: Global Dialogue’, which took place at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute on 5-6 June, by the rector of the university, academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Mykhailo Zgurovsky. ‘We are witnessing the explosive development of the artificial intelligence industry. This development is determined by a number of factors. Many researchers have the ability to perform high-performance computing; processors that provide parallel computing have become available; many scientists are able to use the capabilities of cloud computing; breakthroughs are taking place in the algorithmic and mathematical aspects: methods of so-called deep machine learning, i.e. learning based on multilayer neural networks, are rapidly developing; recurrent neural networks that do not require the storage of huge amounts of data have begun to work effectively, as States have to respond to them very quickly and rebuild quickly.’ 

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Ukraine has accepted these challenges and, according to Mykhailo Zgurovsky, has already developed certain strategies and programmes of work in the new environment. New special coordinating bodies are responsible for their implementation. For example, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine has created a Coordination Scientific Council on Artificial Intelligence and a network of relevant regional centres, which involve the best mathematicians, physicists, computer science and information technology specialists (Anatoliy Zagorodny, President of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, told the Forum participants about them). This has greatly contributed to the intensification of work on the development of AI technologies and research both in Kyiv and throughout the country. Certainly, the number of events aimed at identifying the most promising domestic developments in this field and attracting new specialists and students to work in it has also increased.

 

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One of these events is the All-Ukrainian Competition of Student Research Papers on Artificial Intelligence, which was held for the second time in a row under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute was designated as the base university for organising and holding this event. In fact, this particular competition, or rather its final part, was an event that brought together leading industry experts from several countries and startups working on innovative projects using artificial intelligence in various sectors of the Ukrainian economy and defence. Therefore, the competition naturally grew into the International Forum of Researchers and Specialists, which included three components: the forum itself with visionary messages from leading domestic and foreign experts in artificial intelligence and the discussion ‘Artificial Intelligence: Strategic Vision of the Future’; the Final Scientific and Practical Conference of the II All-Ukrainian Competition of Student Research Papers on Artificial Intelligence as the final part of this competition; and the competition of startup projects in the field of AI as an intermediate stage of the competition of such projects within the Festival programme.

Of course, each of the speeches at the Forum - and the experts who took part in it included representatives of government authorities, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukrainian universities, domestic and international innovation companies and foundations, domestic and foreign experts in the field of artificial intelligence, scientists and developers of startup projects - deserves a separate, at least brief, review, but due to the lack of newspaper space, this is impossible. Therefore, we will only list some of the key speakers. These are Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Denys Kurbatov, Executive Vice President of Cognitive Research Labs, Ink. ‘retired Rear Admiral of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Forces, Professor Yuki Sekiguchi (Japan), renowned innovative entrepreneur, co-founder of the Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine, Igor Peer (Israel), Academician-Secretary of the Department of Informatics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and co-chairman of the Coordination Scientific Council on Artificial Intelligence Oleksandr Khimich (the second co-chairman is, by the way, academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Mykhailo Zgurovsky), general director of the Association of Industrial Automation Enterprises of Ukraine (AIEU) Oleksandr Yurchak, head of the Department of Computer Science of the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute Serhiy Stichnyk (Ukraine), co-founder of the Sikorsky Challenge. Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute Serhiy Stirenko, Robert Kroplevski (Poland), authorised representative of the Board of the Industrial Platform of the Future Foundation, and others. 

Among the issues discussed by the Forum participants during the panel discussion ‘Artificial Intelligence: Strategic Vision of the Future’, which took place after the experts' speeches, were not only the prospects for further development of AI and expansion of its application areas, but also the risks that may arise and will certainly arise along the way. 

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About the Second All-Ukrainian Student Research Competition

on artificial intelligence

Opening the second part of the Forum - the Final Scientific and Practical Conference of the II All-Ukrainian Competition of Student Research Papers on Artificial Intelligence - one of the organisers of this competition, Head of Computer Vision, Professor Viktor Sineglazov, addressing the students, said: ‘Artificial intelligence is life. You can't give it up anymore, you need to do it every day. Because hundreds of papers on this topic are published every day. Especially in China, the US, and other countries. All this needs to be monitored. Because today you didn't do something, tomorrow you're behind, the day after tomorrow you're behind forever... Artificial intelligence is the future.’ This is indeed true. And this competition encourages its young participants to be in shape, so to speak. 

It is appropriate to say a few words about the competition itself. It was jointly organised by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the Coordination Scientific Council on Artificial Intelligence of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Institute for Modernisation of Education Content with the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and the Sikorsky Challenge Innovation Ecosystem of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. As mentioned above, Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (Department of Artificial Intelligence, Institute of Information Systems and Software Engineering) is the host institution of the Competition. Credit Agricole Bank was the general sponsor, EvoLogics GmbH (Germany) was the general sponsor of the Final Conference, and Trendformer was the sponsor.

The competition consisted of two rounds. The first one ended in May, when the most promising ones were selected from a number of student research papers that universities selected from those that were performed within their walls to participate in the competition and sent to KPI (there were more than 50 of them). The second and final stage was held in the format of a scientific and practical conference, where young innovators presented the results of their research and proposed AI technologies and software products. Based on the results of the review, the Contest Committee allowed 15 developments in several areas to participate in it, presented by students from 14 higher education institutions in Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zhytomyr, Cherkasy, Kryvyi Rih, Lviv, and Drohobych, relocated universities in Donetsk, Mariupol, Kramatorsk, and Poznan University of Technology (Poland). In addition, a team of students from the Kyiv Pechersk Lyceum #171 ‘Leader’, which has been working closely with KPI in recent years, presented their work out of competition at the conference.

The wide range of student research and development is evidenced by the topics of the winners' entries. 

The first place was awarded to Mykhailo Savchenko from Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute with the work ‘Intelligent system for detecting objects from autonomous underwater vehicles’; 

The second prize was awarded to Kyrylo Belyaev and Vadym Oliynyk from the National University of Odesa Polytechnic with the paper ‘Intelligent Information Technology for Multicriteria Assessment of Vulnerability of Petrol Stations to the Main Types of Accidents’, as well as to Oleg Humeniuk and Anastasia Komar from the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute with the paper ‘Generation and Analysis of Event Networks from Telegram News Channels Using Artificial Intelligence’ (Oleg and Anastasia's work was awarded a separate diploma in the nomination ‘Best Artificial Intelligence Solution for Governance’ by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine).

The third place was taken by Denys Holub from Bohdan Khmelnytsky Cherkasy National University with the paper ‘Recognition of Ukrainian Language in Modern Songs Using a Neural Network’, Nazariy Danylchuk from Polissya National University with the development of ‘Robotic System for Object Tracking’ and Oleksandr Shulika from Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute with the paper ‘Model of a Two-Dimensional Layer of a Neural Network Based on Global Convolution’. 

The Commission also recognised the participation of Maria Rusova from the Kyiv Pechersk Lyceum ‘Leader’. 

The awards were presented to the winning teams by Mikhail Zgurovsky, Chairman of the Competition Commission. 

About the AI startup competition

The main event of the second day of the Forum was undoubtedly the AI startup competition. 40 projects were submitted, of which the jury selected exactly half - 20 projects - for the final. The works in this competition were evaluated in several nominations, and the participants presented them to the jury and the audience both in the hall and online. 

‘Participation in this competition provides not only a chance to win or take a prize, but also an opportunity to see your project through the eyes of potential consumers, to communicate with people who care about the use of such technologies. Therefore, its main goal has been achieved,’ said Vitalii Pasichnyk, Vice-Rector for Research, KPI, when summing up the results of this competition. He also said that representatives of 13 educational institutions and business structures from 12 cities of Ukraine had submitted their developments to the competition.

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Based on the results of the evaluation of the projects by the members of the International Jury, the following were announced as winners:

First place: the Anima project, an innovative online service for screening and improving mental health by analysing users' attention and emotional state. The Anima project team received a cash prize equivalent to $2000 and a certificate to participate in the final of the competition at the Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine 2024 Festival of Innovative Projects in October this year. 

The second place went to the project ‘Modelling of armed confrontation with UAVs in ground operations’. The authors of this project received a cash prize equivalent to $1500 and a certificate to participate in the final of the competition as part of the Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine 2024 Festival of Innovative Projects.

Third place was awarded to the Anna Malia project. The team of its developers received a cash prize equivalent to $1300 and a certificate to participate in the final of the competition within the framework of the Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine 2024 Festival of Innovative Projects.

As for the winners in individual nominations, the following teams were selected:

In the Pharmacology, Telemedicine and Diagnostics Services nomination, the CLTI diagnosis project team.

The team of the Smart Parking Navigator project in the Object Recognition and Labelling of Vision Data category.

The team of the project ‘Personalisation of learning in an educational online environment’ won in the nomination ‘Improvement of distance learning systems’.

In addition, the Di-agnostics project, the Perimeter project, the Robotic Complexes Based on Artificial Intelligence project, the VISNAV project, and the WarScan project received high marks from the jury and certificates to participate in the final of the competition at the Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine 2024 Festival of Innovative Projects. 

‘Innovation cannot be stopped, because ideas will always be born in our heads, no matter how difficult the times are,’ said Inna Maliukova, project manager of the Sikorsky Challenge startup school network and co-founder of the Sikorsky Challenge Innovation Ecosystem, before announcing the winners of the competition. 

And it is impossible to disagree with this. 

Dmytro Stefanovych
Photo from blog.sikorskychallenge.com

For two days, the best of the best in the field of AI discussed global trends in artificial intelligence and mechanisms for implementing them in Ukraine.

This innovative event was organized by the Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine ecosystem with the support of the Ministry of Education and Science and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

A huge number of students from all over Ukraine and Poland joined the event. The forum included the second All-Ukrainian competition of student research papers on artificial intelligence. The most promising works in the field of AI will take part in the Sikorsky Challenge Innovation Festival 2024.

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