Samsung announced the winners of the Samsung IT Academy Inter-University student project contest 2021

October 28-29, 2021. Samsung Electronics company held the Final of the Fourth Annual Inter-University Projects Contest for graduates of Samsung IT Academy. The key event of the educational project brought together 29 graduates of the 2020-2021 academic year from 12 leading Russian universities that are partners of the project.

The competition was held in 2 rounds. The 19 best projects from 12 Russian universities were presented in the Final, which was held online over 2 days: HSE (Moscow), MEPhI (Moscow), MIREA (Moscow), UrFU (Ekaterinburg), SUSU (Chelyabinsk), TUSUR (Tomsk), IrNITU (Irkutsk), SFU (Rostov-on-Don), SAFU (Arkhangelsk), UGNTU (Ufa), SF BashSU (Sterlitamak), KSU (Kursk).

The competition took place in three categories corresponding to the educational tracks of the Samsung IT Academy project: Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Mobile Development. Samsung Electronics chose the winner of its special nomination. Online audience voting determined the winner in the «Audience Choice» category.

The contesting projects of the students of the Internet of Things track were prototypes of devices connected by modern communication technologies. In the Artificial Intelligence track, the project was a trained neural network embedded in an application software system, in the Mobile Development track an Android application was demonstrated.

The projects were evaluated according to several criteria: the idea, the software and hardware components of the project, and the presentation. The jury included experts from Samsung R&D Institute Russia, Samsung AI Center — Moscow, ISP RAS, MIPT, and leading IT companies: Kaspersky Lab, IBM, Yandex, Diasoft, Intersvyaz, Sitronics, Rightech. For the fourth year in a row, the jury was chaired by Stanislav Polonsky, Ph.D. in Physics and Mathematics, Head of SAIT-Russia Team at the Samsung R&D Institute Russia.

The best project of the Internet of Things track was «Cold Monitor» by Artem Osintsev from Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radio Electronics (TUSUR), teacher Oleg Pekhov, mentor Ksenia Sizova (RedBees). The system monitors temperatures in industrial refrigeration units in real time, logs statistics and informs in case of temperature range violations. «Cold Monitor» consists of client devices with a LoRa radio module and a gateway, which polls customers and transmits data to the server via GSM modem or WiFi network. The project has already been put into pilot stage.

The winners in the Artificial Intelligence track were TUSUR students Pavel Laptev and Sergey Davydenko with their project «Image Segmentation Using Price Tags as an Example», which they worked on under the guidance of teacher Mikhail Svetlakov and mentor Vladimir Karacharov (Samsung R&D Institute Russia). The project can be used by store employees to automatically reconcile the information on the price tag with the actual information in the organization’s database.

The winner in the Mobile Development track was Kirill Voskrebentsev from RTU MIREA with the IMLocation project, tutor Leonid Sheshukov, mentor Andrey Skripkin (Samsung R&D Institute Russia). The student used the example of the MIREA building to suggest a solution to the problem of navigating inside large buildings with a weak GPS signal.

Murad Dusov’s project «Smart trash bin» won in the nomination «Audience’s choice» with 49% of votes, the teacher is Anton Mironov, RTU MIREA.

The winner in «Special Samsung nomination» is the student of HSE Ivan Bolshakov, the developer of the «Air pollution monitoring system» project of «Internet of things» track, who created it under the guidance of teacher Leonid Voskov, mentor of the project is Andrey Peresadko (Samsung R&D Institute Russia). The system uses sensors to determine indicators of environmental pollution, temperature and wind speed. The project is aimed at owners of incinerators and landfills.

Samsung named TUSUR the «University of the Year«. The history of cooperation between TUSUR and Samsung IT Academy began in 2018 with the Internet of Things track, last year a track on AI was launched. In the final competition, two projects by TUSUR students won the main nominations. In 2021, TUSUR professors Oleg Pekhov and Evgeny Kostyuchenko participated in a Samsung Innovation Campus Lectorium on the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence, collecting a more than 1,200 views on the Samsung IT Academy YouTube channel.

«Mentor of the Year» was named Ksenia Sizova, project manager at RedBees from St. Petersburg. Ksenia worked as a mentor this year and in previous years on the jury of the Samsung IT Academy contest, preparing a series of lectures on important topics in the Industrial Internet of Things as part of the Samsung Innovation Campus lecture series.

«Samsung Electronics has been working in Russia for 30 years. This is a very important region of our activity, and we intend to develop our projects in the long term. One of the key areas that is always at the center of our attention is IT education. We are proud to contribute to the spread of technology education in Russia and train high-level IT specialists in Artificial Intelligence, Mobile Application Development and the Internet of Things to develop Industry 4.0. As a leader in technology, we have the right experience and expertise. I wish you all the best of luck and inspiration to move forward and achieve success!» — commented Kim DeHyun, President of Samsung Electronics CIS RHQ.

«Graduates of Samsung IT Academy receive very important knowledge. This includes modern trends such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Mobile Technologies as well as the knowledge and experience of the world’s leading company which is very socially oriented. We have been cooperating with Samsung for more than 10 years, we have joint laboratories, and I am glad that Samsung fully keeps its promises and trains specialists who are competitive at the global level,» noted the Director of the Institute of System Programming RAS Arutyun Avetisyan, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

«The Samsung IT Academy program is four years old. During this time, we have graduated more than 400 highly qualified IT specialists on the basis of partner universities across Russia. This year the program was conducted in 3 study tracks. In the new academic year, the number of partner sites has increased to more than 30 leading universities. I would like to thank the teachers from my heart and wish the students a successful presentation of their projects. I wish them success not only in today’s event but also in life as professional IT developers,» commented Sergey Pevnev, Director of Corporate Citizenship and Government Relations of Samsung Electronics CIS RHQ.

«Samsung IT Academy» is a long-term free social educational program of Samsung Electronics. The project was launched in 2017. The educational program of «Samsung IT Academy» is aimed at training highly qualified specialists in the most demanded areas of IT. As of today, Samsung IT Academy program classes are held in 34 universities in Russia.

The free, one-year training tracks of the program, created by Samsung Research Russia specialists, are built upon mastering demanded practical skills through project work. Students at the project’s partner universities are trained using the educational programs of the Internet of Things, Mobile Development, and Artificial Intelligence tracks. By the end of the academic year, graduates of the Samsung IT Academy will independently develop individual projects and, if they successfully complete the program, receive a certificate from Samsung.

In the academic year 2020-2021, 46% of graduates chose the Mobile Development track — the most popular track at Samsung IT Academy. The next most popular track was the Internet of Things, chosen by 33% of graduates. The youngest track, Artificial Intelligence, was chosen by 21% of graduates. More than 87.1% of graduates are willing to recommend training at Samsung IT Academy to friends and fellow students. At the end of the training, more than half of the respondents noted that their attitude toward Samsung Electronics has changed for the better.

In October 2020, the Samsung IT Academy educational program was awarded the «Best Social Projects of Russia» prize.