YuSU Master's student - winner of the IV Technology Startup Accelerator

Alina Savchenko, a master's student of the Higher Oil School of YuSU, won the 4th season of the Technology Startup Accelerator. The young scientist-developer received grant support in the amount of 2,000,000 rubles.

The awarding ceremony took place the day before in Khanty-Mansiysk on the main stage of the Yugra Economic Forum. Ruslan Kukharuk, Governor of Yugra, and Yuri Saprykin, Deputy Chairman of the Board for Regional Development, Chief Managing Director of the Skolkovo Foundation, announced the five winners of this year's accelerator program and awarded grant certificates for the implementation of technological projects in Yugra.

Alina Savchenko presented the development of an asphaltene-type inhibitor of heavy oil deposites based on surfactants of different action. As the winner explained, now there is a large production of “heavy” oils, and they are very complicated with asphaltenes. Because of this, oil pipes get clogged and there are big problems with equipment. The development creates the necessary additive to minimize these deposits.

“Frankly speaking, it was very unexpected, because initially we had very strong doubts about our project, there was a lot of elaboration. But in the end, the experts of the Accelerator evaluated our work at face value. And even when we were speaking, they told us that our project was very interesting and deserved further commercialization. The grant opens up great opportunities to promote our project. We are already close to creating a prototype, literally in 2-3 weeks we will get the first version of it and we want to patent it”, - shared Alina.

“The number of those willing to participate in the Accelerator is growing. This is the best confirmation that the competition is an effective mechanism for launching projects that go from idea to prototyping and support of those areas that the region needs today”, - emphasized Ruslan Kukharuk, the Governor of Yugra.

We would like to add that this year 148 applications from 36 regions and 44 cities of Russia were submitted for participation in the Accelerator in the areas of “Development of technologies in the field of energy security”, “Health Care and Quality of Life” and “Advanced engineering technologies and new materials adapted to the conditions of the North and the Arctic”. The 50 selected projects underwent an intensive acceleration program under the guidance of Russia's leading trackers, including an educational and practical module, master classes, startup diagnostics and tracking with personal mentors of the program. This year, for the first time, along with the technology stream, a separate student stream was organized. It is indicative that three winning projects were participants of the student stream.