Fourteen Skoltech-born startups won the fifth round of the Student Startup competition held by the Innovation Promotion Fund. Each winner will receive a grant of one million rubles. Here are the names of the winning projects grouped into five categories:

Digital technology

• Career development and jobs/internship/training search engine for students and budding professionals;
• NFT marketplace for subscription business models;
• One-dimensional basin simulator for estimating hydrocarbon resources and reserves in an area of interest;
• Tutor.GPT virtual tutoring solution based on open-source large language models, such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Yandex GPT;
• DRONSPECTOR hardware and software system for quick diagnosis of barely visible impact damage on aircraft;
• Compass Sales platform for optimizing B2B sales cycles in the construction industry using large language models.

Medicine and health protection

• Hardware and software system for personalized biofeedback-based transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS);
• iTracker solution that helps paralyzed individuals communicate, use PCs and smart home devices through the eye-tracking technology.

New materials and chemical technology

• High-energy-density single-crystal nickel-rich NMC cathode material for lithium-ion batteries.

New instrumentation and smart manufacturing technologies

• FiberStill hardware and software system for structural and technological monitoring of a distillation column based on optical sensors and photonic integrated circuits;
• SafeFoot − an easy-to-use and accurate AI-ML/CV-based device for early self-diagnosis of diabetic foot problems.

Biotechnology

• New type of vertical farms for the Arctic region;
• Sweet protein with improved sweetness and heat stability, the best alternative to existing sugar substitutes;
• A line of high-protein, non-animal collagen functional foods for halal, sports and other personalized diets

“The Entrepreneurship Center is proud of the result − we do our best to inspire students and provide them with all the knowledge and skills they need. However, it is up to the students to participate, and we are aware that winning a competition, or just participating, requires perseverance and excellence in science and technology,” said Dmitry Kulish, the director of Skoltech’s Entrepreneurship Center. “There were 22 applicants this year, and we believe that they are all winners. We wish them success and good luck in their further work, which is just beginning. Winning the competition is the starting line, not the finishing line.”