PJSC Sberbank : Sber names seven best tech startups by students

Accelerator programs for the development of entrepreneurial talent - Sber Z for schoolchildren and SberStudent (organized in collaboration with the Stanford Center for Professional Development) for undergraduates, postgraduates, and researchers - held their Demo Day in Moscow on October 20. Twenty pitches by startup teams were the key event of the evening followed by the announcement of seven winning teams. The youngest participant was aged 14.

An elite jury of experts including Chairman of the Skolkovo Foundation Arkady Dvorkovich, Country Manager Russia at Visa Michael Berner, Znanie CEO Maxim Dreval, Angelsdesk Co-Founder Sergei Dashkov, MISIS Rector Alevtina Chernikova, ITMO University Rector Vladimir Vasilyev, and Southern Federal University Rector Inna Shevchenko listened to 20 pitches from finalist teams and chose seven winning teams.

SberZ winners are:

1^st place: Domapteka, an app to efficiently manage your medicine cabinet at home

2^nd place: Нау-Вау, earphones for people who are hard of hearing

3^rd place: Smart Board, producer of smart and bright longboards for those who love riding outside

4^th place: CometRain, a GPT network-powered platform for automated program coding

5^th place: Legal Help, an automated storage and search system for legal cases

6^th place: Virsen, an online service facilitating distance learning for workers of hazardous facilities

7^th place: QFit, a service letting users pay for workouts per minute.

Information about the teams is available here: https://demoday.sberclass.ru/

The winners shared the prize fund, which they can spend to buy equipment for their further startup work. Three teams received grants from the Moscow Seed Fund. School teams will enjoy preferences when enrolling in universities and colleges.

The Demo Day was a tech XR show - startup presentations were made in the virtual worlds tailored for the event. This was the first time XR was used in a webcast in Russia. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, a special guest, spoke about the global tech trends and things that helped him succeed in business.

The webcast was also organized across Boiling Point co-working venues in 20 cities of Russia.

This year, 26,000 people from 85 Russian regions participated in SberZ and SberStudent. Top 10 parts of Russia with the biggest number of applications are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Primorye Territory, Tatarstan, Ulyanovsk Region, Novosibirsk Region, Nizhny Novgorod Region, Kaliningrad Region, Rostov Region, and Mari El. For several months, the participants studied the basics of entrepreneurship and created their minimum viable products (MVP) with supervisors and mentors.

Lev Khasis, first deputy chairman of the Executive Board, Sberbank:

"The new generation thinks outside the box and is truly interested in creating something new. I am certain that young entrepreneurs will soon change the lives of millions of people for the better with modern technology. Surely, they will do that with the support of mature players like Sber, which is turning 180 on November 12. This school accelerator batch welcomed 14,500 applications from 85 regions of Russia, while the student accelerator saw 11,500 registrations from across the country. This attests to young people's live interest in entrepreneurship in Russia."

Ronie Shilo, managing director, the Stanford Center for Professional Development:

"The Stanford Center for Professional Development is happy to be working with Sber and accompanying thousands of local students on their way as they develop their entrepreneurial skills, test, and perfect their ideas. We hope that the accelerator will be the beginning of a big journey into the world of entrepreneurship for everyone participating in the program today. I wish them all good luck!"