The 10th Anniversary Festival of Innovation Projects “Sikorsky Challenge 2021: Ukraine & the World” took place at Ukraine’s Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (KPI) on August 12-14 on the eve of the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s Independence. Events within festival’s framework lasted three days.
The purpose of the festival was to pinpoint the most interesting and relevant projects in various technical fields as well as to assist the authors of the best projects in their commercialization, establishment of successful startup companies, bringing innovation products to home and international markets.
A topic covering engineering developments for the defense industry hit the highlight. The festival opened on August 12 with the International Defense Investment Forum presided over by Oleh Urusky, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine. Development prospects of Ukraine’s defense industry until 2030 were under discussion.
No doubt the main event of the festival was the competition of innovative projects “Sikorsky Challenge”, for which 320 projects were submitted. 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”.
The authors of the projects qualified for the finals told about their engineering developments both offline on the festival grounds and online from other cities, even other countries – in video conference mode.
The international jury composed of experts from the United States, Israel, China, Azerbaijan and Ukraine determined the winners of the startup project competition by nominations, while representatives of innovation business, investment companies and investment funds selected the most interesting projects. Investors will work with the teams of authors on the commercial viability of winning projects.
This year Sikorsky Challenge 2021: Ukraine & the World gathered representatives of government agencies, foreign embassies in Ukraine, SCU international offices (U.S., Israel, China, Azerbaijan), innovative clusters in cities/regions and startup schools “Sikorsky Challenge Ukraine” (SCU) based in the cities of Vinnytsia, Mariupol, Kramatorsk, Severodonetsk, Poltava, Kherson, Kryvyi Rih and Lutsk.
Overall, the best inventors from 19 regions of Ukraine and five countries converged on the KPI’s festival.