GoTech is the largest startup contest in Russia and Eastern Europe. When filling the application form, startups are required to provide information about holders of their CEO, CTO (Chief Technical Officer), and CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) positions. The GoTech Innovation company, in turn, collects and analyzes this data and identifies what universities the GoTech contest participants studied at.
According to the study, 715 startups from 120 cities took part in the contest last year. 1495 team members were top managers: 15% of them were still studying at university, while 85% were graduates.
Among the traditional leaders are Lomonosov Moscow State University, St. Petersburg State University, ITMO University, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. But this year, ITMO University topped the ranking for the first time with 5.5% of students and graduates holding leading positions at the GoTech contest participants.
Lomonosov Moscow State University secured second place (5.3%), while St. Petersburg State University was ranked third. Bauman Moscow State Technical University and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology took fourth and fifth place, respectively.
It is important to note that several ITMO students and graduates became the winners of GoTech 2017. For example, ITMO Technopark’s resident Optimal Drive won in the Finlanding category and got the opportunity to participate in the NewGo acceleration program in Helsinki.
ITMO robotic projects uHVAT and Drone Employee won in the Robotics & AI and Next Generation Security categories. As a prize, the uHVAT team made up of Ivan Borisov, Oleg Borisov, and Vladislav Gromov, postgraduate students at ITMO’s Faculty of Control Systems and Robotics, received the opportunity to launch a pilot project together with TRA Robotics and represent GoTech with them at the TechCrunch Disrupt forum in Berlin.
Drone Employee team’s award was a free trip to the Web Summit in Lisbon. Drone Employee is a tool that allows to manage a shared fleet of drones, which is based on Aira (Autonomous Intelligent Robot Agent) technological solutions. The winning team is comprised of Alexander Kapitonov, an assistant at the Department of Control Systems and Informatics, and Sergey Lonshakov, a blockchain developer.
“GoTech Innovation is growing rapidly and becoming more and more popular among IT specialists. It can be placed on a par with other innovative development institutions and companies, and it is only natural that each year, more of our students and graduates submit their application for participation in the GoTech contest. ITMO University supports this initiative as it provides new opportunities for out startup teams,” shares Nina Yanykina, head of Project Management and Innovation Department.
According to the company representatives, not only Moscow and St. Petersburg universities made it to the ranking. Among the top twenty universities are the Ural State University (11th place), the Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University (14th place), and the Samara State University (15th place). In total, more than 200 Russian and international universities feature in participants’ application forms.
“Our company specializes in technological projects and in order to work more efficiently, we need information about the educational background of the top people of the companies we work with. What is remarkable is that more and more startup founders are getting additional training in business management abroad,” commented Irina Kalashnikova, CEO GoTech Innovation.
GoTech Innovation is an innovation agency that helps corporations find technological projects and collaborate with them. The company launches acceleration programs for technological projects, creates corporate programs and other events for startups. For ten years now, the company has been organizing GoTech, one of the largest contests for technological projects in Russia and Eastern Europe. Besides, the company has developed its own technological platform for conducting startup contests and assessing participants’ projects, called AdvisoryBoard.ru
