How to help in solving the problem of introducing domestic innovations?

Good afternoon, dear Habrasociety. In this post, we would like to discuss with you what problems stand in the way of the practical implementation of innovative developments of Ukrainian and Russian scientists, as well as offer our option of a partial answer to this question - the project “First Ukrainian Innovation Exchange InnoHunters”.



I want to note right away that we are very interested in the considerations of the Khabrovsk residents on the topic, so we will be grateful for the opinions and suggestions expressed. I am the leader of the group working on the project, as well as a member of one of the Ukrainian scientific groups working in the field of solid state physics.

The essence of the problem

The scientific schools of the post-Soviet space have earned great authority around the world. Our scientists create innovative developments, often superior to their Western counterparts, both in quality and in cost. However, the process of practical implementation of such innovations in production is extremely slow, and it is difficult for scientists to find funding to continue their work.

The effective implementation of domestic innovations is hindered already at the search stage, when investing companies have to spend a lot of time and effort to find high-quality and promising developments. At this stage, the following problems exist:

1. Information about domestic innovative developments is extremely scattered. Her search through search engines is very difficult.
2. Themed exhibitions are a good option for finding innovation, but traveling around the exhibitions takes a lot of money and time.
3. The search for innovations based on patents is inconvenient, because it is often not clear from a patent what stage of readiness a particular development is at.
4. And besides all of the above, innovative developments are often described by highly specialized terminology, for which it is difficult to discern the advantages of this development.

If we add to this that investors, as a rule, are busy people, it turns out that they can skip a good and significant innovation (even when it is found). Just because you need to spend a considerable amount of time to delve into the benefits of this innovation.

Thus, it is extremely difficult to organize effective cooperation between science and business without solving the problem of logistics in science .

Solution option

We decided to create a startup that will help research and production companies and investors find effective Ukrainian innovative developments, spending a minimum of time on this. Our startup “The First Ukrainian Innovation Exchange InnoHunters” is called and lives at www.InnoHunters.com.ua .

The project combines several solutions, which, in our opinion, can significantly save time when searching for promising new products or monitoring the market of scientific developments. Consider these solutions in more detail.

Custom Search Innovation System

The most important innovation that distinguishes the InnoHunters Exchange from related projects in Runet and Uanet is a non-standard innovation search system.

In such a system, all innovations are classified by technological structure (“Nano- and bio-”, “Micro- and eco-”, “Chemistry and oil”), and more precisely, by the technologies belonging to these structures, each innovation can relate to several technologies at the same time. So, innovations for the purification of oil pollution, at the same time apply to both Ecology and Oil and Oil Products.

The novelty of the system lies in the ability to search for innovations at the intersection of several technologies. This approach allows us to make finding innovations in highly specialized topics simple and intuitive. In the above example, in order to find the required innovation, three mouse clicks are enough - go to the Catalog, and double-click on the names of the technologies.

In addition, the use of cross-search allows you to minimize the number of technologies in the catalog, and therefore simplify navigation. The screenshot below shows what our innovation search system looks like:

Known Ready Stage

Only innovations are accepted on the Exchange, from the description of which their stage of readiness is clear. In our opinion, this approach allows investors and research and production companies not to waste time on beautifully written dummy patents that are not backed up by any real developments.

Marketing Processing Innovation

This is perhaps the most time-consuming innovation. For each innovation introduced to the Exchange, we draw up a short summary, which allows us to get an idea of ​​its purpose and some important features and the advantages of this innovation over its analogues in 30 seconds.

This approach allows the investor to quickly understand whether a particular development is relevant, and whether it is worth further understanding. Here, a direct benefit is obtained both for the development scientist (his innovation will not be missed), and for the investor — saving time in comparison with the case when you need to read the full technical description of each innovation is very significant.

Summarizing

Today, according to this scheme, we have posted about 200 Ukrainian innovative developments on the Exchange’s website, as well as an additional database of more than two thousand Ukrainian innovations. InnoHunters Exchange plans to provide paid access to advanced information on the innovations presented at it. And also offers services for the selection of innovations to order, using the base we have collected. At the moment, the project is at the stage of open beta testing.

Dear Khabrovchans, we ask you to express your opinions on the project www.InnoHunters.com.ua , as well as on the above approach to solving the problem of logistics in science.