The fifth annual Sochi Startup 2024 Forum of Young Entrepreneurs was attended by more than 500 entrepreneurs, founders of innovative technology companies, creators of startup projects, and teams from leading Russian universities.

More than 1,300 people, including students from 23 universities in 15 Russian cities, took part in the qualifying stages of the Sochi Startup 2024 competition during the year. Over 300 startups and business projects are represented, of which the Expert Council selected 40 of the most promising for the final in Sochi. Their teams will make presentations and pitchings at the Forum.

The main event of the Forum was the demo days, during which participants of the student acceleration programs "Sea of Ideas", "Mountains of Opportunities" and "Palm of the Championship", as well as founders of business projects from Sochi and the Russian regions presented their innovative technological developments, including those created on behalf of industrial partners.

Three projects of students of the Southern Federal University reached the finals of the forum: "BeAbo Digital Guide" – Daniel Fursa, "SmartAgriTech (SAT)" – Denis Zuev, TagNavigator "Bluetooth tags for logistics optimization" – Kristina Tsybulina.

The SmartAgriTech project, which became the winner in the final of the competition, is to develop and implement an automated harvester management system aimed at improving crop harvesting efficiency by installing equipment (cameras, sensors and sensors), as well as algorithms for navigation and control using modern technologies such as GPS and GLONASS.

"The idea arose after analyzing the current problems in agriculture related to high staff turnover, lack of specialists, unwillingness of people to work in agriculture and low accuracy of machinery," said Denis Zuev, the leader of the winning team.

The introduction of similar technologies in other countries has become an important factor for the development of the project and the improvement of the Russian agro-industrial sector.

The team included students from different departments of the Southern Federal University: developers and programmers from the SFedU Institute of Computer Technologies

and Information Security and several students from the SFedU Faculty of Physics, the team leader is studying at the Faculty of Management of SFedU

According to the team leader, the created system will be useful to agricultural enterprises, agricultural cooperatives and government programs, as it will reduce labor costs, solve the problem of a shortage of specialists, increase harvesting productivity by 20-30% and improve product quality.

The SmartAgriTech project involves the use of tags that allow you to track the location and condition of goods in real time. As a result, companies can improve the efficiency of their logistics processes and reduce operating costs.

"The Mountains of Opportunity accelerator helped us develop the idea, provided access to investors, resources and financing, which allows us to further develop the project and test a prototype system for future implementation," added Denis Zuev.

The teams that won the final of the competition will receive post-auction support for the further development of their projects.