The Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (KPI) hosted the 11th Festival of Innovation Projects “Sikorsky Challenge 2022: Innovative Transformation of Ukraine” on October 26-28.
The Festival was attended by government officials, members of parliamentary committees, representatives of Ukrainian and international innovative companies, diplomats, and representatives of partner universities.
How Sikorsky Challenge 2022 is changing the face of innovation in war
This year the Sikorsky Challenge Festival focused on the post-war rebuilding of Ukraine. That is why most presented projects were drawn up to meet the needs of the war-struck country.
“Whereas in the past we almost did not cooperate with government institutions, this year our event is devoted to priority areas such as defense, infrastructure, IT, and cybersecurity,” Inna Maliukova, Head of the Innovation Ecosystem Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine (SCU), said. “Therefore, ministers, deputy ministers, members of the Verkhovna Rada [Ukraine’s parliament], and representatives of the Presidential Office of Ukraine joined the event, as there is a vital necessity to develop an innovative economy.”
Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, stressed the need to attract the funds of business circles and international partners, and promised to draw government’s attention to the importance to develop such platforms as Sikorsky Challenge.
“We need to combine our capabilities as a government, the capabilities of investors and governments of other countries, Ukrainian-Polish enterprises that could use startups for joint engineering developments,” Ms. Vereshchuk pointed out. “There are totally committed companies and the Polish government, which really want this to happen. The same goes for Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom.”
Making the presentation of the Platform for Innovative Transformation of Ukraine on the basis of the All-Ukrainian Innovation Ecosystem at the Festival, Mykhailo Zgurovsky, KPI Rector and Scientific Adviser at the Innovation Ecosystem Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine, quoted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said in May: “The postwar reconstruction of Ukraine should become the same historical example as the reconstruction of Europe after the second world war. It will be an investment in the stability of the entire Central and Eastern Europe.”
“Our main goal is to join this ambitious program in quest of the innovations, inventions and startups, bringing them to domestic and foreign markets, which would accelerate the reconstruction and innovative transformation of Ukraine,” the KPI Rector said.
In prewar years, the Innovation Ecosystem Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine comprised 25 startup schools based in 20 regions of Ukraine. Regional innovation clusters, high-tech companies, banks, funds, and local authorities grouped around these startup schools. Increasingly, the SCU Ecosystem is winning worldwide popularity: three international offices Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine have been opened in the United States, two each in Israel, Azerbaijan and China, and one in Poland.
According to Mykhailo Zgurovsky, the main tasks during this period are to strengthen ties between business circles, a scientific society and policymakers to accelerate the solution of technological problems in towns, cities and regions, as well as to promote the development of ideas and innovations. High-tech innovative companies, associations and investment funds should be involved in projects, and think factories established at universities and research institutions of Ukraine.
Main events, topics, pitches: how Festival was held
The main events of the Festival included the International Forum “Platform for Innovative Transformation of Ukraine on the Basis of the All-Ukrainian Innovation Ecosystem Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine”, and the traditional competition of the innovative projects short-listed for the finals in six areas: “Defense and Security. Aviation and Space”; “Infrastructure and Industrial High-Tech”; “Information Technology, Digital Country, Cybersecurity”; “Biomedical Engineering and Human Health”; and “Environmental and Energy Security”.
In the course of all three Festival’s days contestants made their pitches both in the in-person mode and in the online mode.
In addition, the format of the Festival included the round table entitled “Incubating Freedom for Ukraine – Adapting Women to the Digital Economy”, which was moderated by Dr. Bianka Siwinski, CEO Poland’s Perspektywy Education Foundation.
Sikorsky Challenge Junior: the KPI School of Creativity worked throughout the Festival.
Summing up the results of the 11th Festival of Innovation Projects “Sikorsky Challenge 2022: Innovative Transformation of Ukraine” at a closing ceremony, it was announced that the event gathered 502 participants, 188 projects were submitted for this year’s competition, and 75 teams reached the finals.
The international jury was traditionally chaired by Vic Korsun, Ukrainian-American Head of the Supervisory Board of the All-Ukrainian Innovation Ecosystem Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine.
According to the results of the competition of innovative projects, the jury determined winners by the following categories: “Best Project Idea”, “Best Technological Solution”, “Best Solution of the Problems of Prospective Customers”, and “Best Business Model”.
The general sponsors for the Innovation Ecosystem Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine are the online broker Freedom Finance Europe, Boeing Ukraine, TRANSFOTECH, and the Chongqing Technology Research Institute.
The authors of some projects received awards from the U.S. company Orange Pavers, the Leonid Kuchma Presidential Foundation “Ukraine”, and the GIST Programs.
As expected, winning project teams will enjoy the support by the Innovation Holding Sikorsky Challenge and its partners, sign protocols of intent with investors, and start preparing for the joint implementation of projects.
“Our task is to connect projects to business as closely as possible,” Oleksii Strutsynskyi, Director of the innovation holding company Sikorsky Challenge, told the partners and investors who attended the Festival. “Given how business is interested in these projects, it finds what works best for it.”
“Along with our partners and investors, we are confident that an advance in innovations will transform Ukraine into a wealthy, high-tech and secure country,” KPI Rector Mykhailo Zgurovsky concluded. “To this end, our project [Sikorsky Challenge Festival] was expressly launched.”
Sikorsky Challenge 2021: Ukraine & the World
By comparison, the 10th Anniversary Festival of Innovation Projects “Sikorsky Challenge 2021: Ukraine & the World” took place at KPI on August 12-14, 2021 on the eve of the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s Independence. Last year 320 projects were submitted for the competition. The council of experts short-listed 130 startup projects for the finals in six areas: “Defense & Security”; “Industrial High-Tech & Space”; “Green Energy, Hydrogen Economy, Ecology”; “Biomedical Engineering & Human Health”; “Agricultural Engineering”; “Information Technology, Digital Country, Cybersecurity”.
Overall, the best inventors from 19 regions of Ukraine and five countries converged on the KPI’s festival in 2021.