St. Petersburg delights with cow pregnancy tests and ‘Internet of Vegetables’

A wind generator, a cow pregnancy test and the curiously titled Internet of Vegetables were among the victors in the pitch contest at the seventh stage of the Startup Tour, which wrapped up in St. Petersburg this week.

The winners of the pitch sessions in St. Petersburg. Photo: sk.ru

Russia’s biggest innovations roadshow reached the northern city’s Freedom art space on Wednesday and Thursday, where prizes were up for grabs for innovators in four categories: IT, biomed, efficient energy and industrial technology.

The top place in the IT track went to Alexander Borgul with Conference Speaker, while Sergei Popov’s smart environment innovation took first place in the industrial technologies category.

The best biomedical presentation was considered to be by Anna Potapova, who offered a high-speed cow pregnancy test, while Alexander Atrashenko’s Magnus effect wind generator impressed the judges the most in the efficient energy section.

 

All except Potapova won invitations to the Startup Village pitch contest in Moscow on June 2-3, with an additional invite given to Ilya Demin for his Internet of Vegetables (Internet Ovoshei) innovation. The title of the product-management innovation is a play on the Russian translation of Internet of Things (Internet Veshei).

Demin, Medvedev, Atrashenko and Popov earned 1 million ruble grants from the Fund for Developing Small High-Tech Enterprises.

With the St. Petersburg stage, the Startup Tour returned to Russia after its first trip abroad in its five-year history to Kazakhstan. The next stop is Vladivostok on April 2-3.

A table showing the top places in each track. Those projects in bold earn a place in the Startup Village pitch contest, while the asterisked projects are awarded a 1 million ruble grant from the Fund for Developing Small High-Tech Enterprises.