Jan 14, 2013

On December 6th, in Kyiv, Ukraine, CRDF Global’s Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Program (STEP) concluded its 2012 “From Idea to Market” competition. Twelve teams pitched their ideas to the US-Ukrainian panel of jurors at the Competition final event, Venture Forum hosted at Eastlabs Business Accelerator, and five were awarded one-year grants to bring their innovations to the market.

STEP 2012 “From Idea to Market” competition was open to all Ukrainian scientists and technology entrepreneurs with innovative projects that have commercial applications in the local, regional, and/or international markets. The competition and a portion of the awards are co-funded by the State Agency of Ukraine for Science, Innovation, and Information (SASII). STEP is funded by the US Department of State.

In addition to the monetary awards, teams will receive individual mentoring from top U.S. business experts in technology commercialization and entrepreneurship.

CRDF Global congratulates all competition participants for their hard work and innovative spirit, and is proud to present the winners of this year’s competition.

Cost-Effective Technology for Titanium Alloy Manufacturing

Team Lead: Orest Ivasishin

Though titanium alloys are highly desirable as components for aviation, automotive parts, medicine, and other industries, using them is often prohibitive because of the high cost. The proposed technology allows cost-effective production of titanium alloy components possessing the characteristics of high strength, low density and corrosion resistance that make it so desirable. Due to high component characteristics and reduced processing cost, this technology is competitively positioned against other existing technologies for titanium components manufacturing.

THz Clinotron Oscillators

Team Lead: Oleksiy Kuleshov

Professionals that work in areas requiring the use of Terahertz waves currently lack a compact, easy to use detector/producer of radiation this range, which lies between the optical and microwave spectrum. The proposed clinotron tube is a source of electromagnetic radiation in THz range. Unlike traditional backward wave oscillators or gyrotrons, the Clinotron simultaneously provides high power and wide frequency tuning in a compact device with multiple applications in biology, medicine, material science, spectroscopy, radar systems, etc.

Immunoxel

Team Lead: Galyna Kutsyna

Tuberculosis is a global health problem, and its treatment can take up to 2 or 3 years. Immunoxel is an immune adjunct that has been shown to shorten the duration of TB chemotherapy to 2-4 months. Recently, with help of Immunitor USA and Canadian Honibe, the team has demonstrated that Immunoxel formulated into solid honey lozenges can shorten treatment duration down to one month, 2-4 faster than original liquid formula.

Tools for Noninvasive Cancer Diagnosis

Team Lead: Vasyl Petruk

Often the initial diagnostic tests for skin tumors can be invasive, painful, and nerve-wracking for the patient. The proposed project has developed multispectral imaging for early diagnostics of malignant pigmental skin tumors. The method is based on spectrophotometric and multispectral assessment of the tumor, which allows the device to potentially increase the accuracy of tumor diagnostics without requiring surgical procedures.

Polus-IN

Team Lead: Oleksandr Bovda

In Ukraine, utility companies suffer from theft of gas, water, and electricity when thieves find ways to apply magnets to the meters. The proposed Polus-IN External Magnetic Field Detector is an advanced detecting system created to help utilities directly address this kind of theft. The detector will give clear readings concerning unauthorized magnetic tampering with electrical, water, and gas meters.