The robot assistant lexi took first place at Imagine Cup

Imagine Cup (vk, fb) is the world's largest annual technology competition run by Microsoft since 2003. Permanent organizer of the competition is the company Microsoft. The winners of the international finals in each category will receive for first place, 50 thousand dollars for the second — 10 thousand dollars, for the third — 5 thousand dollars for development. However, the battle is not for money but for the prestige — the winning team will instantly become known around the world, and can use this chance for a real takeoff. vk.com/rtrg?r=MyfvmSagVGcKoVRPBQ92U5CfxIhCPah9BpgCNi*VQ5Z*GZClBfq8O6Xqoc4FgyLmY/t2xfXW*b/pLNakil70J2BgItRALRcbqLdyvvbQaL48y3inrmcx91lp3jlslzotrqwaq2odzccwu06qskcdishi4yplycjlvqqqcvywecs-&pixel_id=1000020818

As written on the website, the contest is open to graduate and undergraduate students from different countries of the world, in a team or alone. Participants need to come up with a bright idea and implement a prototype with the help of modern information technology.



The project team lexi, which consists of graduates of Moscow state University and Bauman Moscow state technical University and post-graduate students of Skoltech, also took part in the competition and took first place in the category "Innovation". The project Lexy — member of the information technologies cluster of the SKOLKOVO Foundation. The project Manager is post-graduate student of laboratory "Space robotics" of the SKOLKOVO Institute of science and technology (Skoltech ) Dmitry Suvorov. Work on the creation of a robot started last year. For the first time Lexy was presented to the public at the conference "Artificial intelligence and natural language" in SKOLKOVO. Lexy — not just a robot, "intelligent assistant", which the user will be able to speak in ordinary language, as a friend.



Albert Yefimov:

Lexy party robotics Center "SKOLKOVO". "First, I want to note that this is the first victory of the SKOLKOVO participant in such a prestigious international competition, albeit on a national stage. Second, it is not just SKOLKOVO guys also post-graduate students of Skoltech, which confirms our idea of technological convergence. Thirdly, the victory of Lexy in fact, in my opinion, the toughest track of the competition — "Innovation" — suggests that robotics gets everywhere, and recognized as the authoritative jury of the Imagine Cup," said Sk.ru head of rootentry "SKOLKOVO"

Stanislav Ashmanov about lexi:

Lexy & Imagine Cup 2015:

This year the Russian final of Imagine Cup, which took place on 18 April 2015, has become bigger and bigger. A lot of guys came from different regions of the country to fight for the title of best and get the opportunity to go to the international finals in Seattle, Microsoft headquarters.




Photography Kozlov. Eugene, thank you!

The event was held at Technopolis Moscow, where we arrived by 9 am. Prepared exhibition stand our team: two working prototype lexi and lexi another one with the new electronics, not yet launched.
The competition was opened by Dmitry Soshnikov (vk, fb).

Partial recording of the whole event.

At 10:20 was the presentation of the teams – minute speech. The contest's three categories: social projects, games, innovation. Plus nomination "Master code": for projects of pupils.
After the presentation of the teams we went to our booth to tell everyone interested about the project. Several Federal TV channels asked for an interview (Lifenews, Mir, Ren-TV). Over the past few days we have become a bit more popular than it was.








Photography Olga Abramovoj. Olya, thank you!

Then was lunch, the food was delicious. After it – our performance, the first in our section. Made showed lexi in action. Time was short, just barely.

The jury were Alexey Pajitnov, Creator of Tetris. It was very interesting to talk with him. Even photographed.



Even talked to the designer, "Yandex.Browser" — Konstantin Gorsky.

Made friends with the creators of the prosthetic hand – Galvani Bionix.

Finally, it was the announcement of the winners. As already mentioned, we took first place in his section. Now you need to make a video in English telling about the project. Wrestle with another two winners for the trip to Seattle for the finals of Imagine Cup.

Immediately after the ceremony at the Imagine Cup finals, Dmitry Suvorov has shared his impressions with Sk.ru:

Everything is fine, we won the contest and now can go to the international final, and it is very interesting to us, because we want to output Lexy on the world market and to go to America. Presentation of the project at this competition is a great opportunity to start. Of course, we hope to meet good investors. Until then, we will work on English.

By the way, the organizers of the Russian round of the Imagine Cup said that the high level of English language proficiency refers to the strengths of the student teams this year. Coordinator of academic programs Department of strategic Microsoft technologies in Russia, Dmitry Soshnikov

the day before the final we spoke with the project, listened to their speeches in English to avoid a situation in which we once were — which is the international final goes to the team that don't know English, which prevents it to show itself. But this time it turned out that this is not a problem — all the teams are pretty well prepared, and of the three winners, no one should have no problem with the presentation itself, the international community

Sk.ru:

this year, the Imagine Cup jury, which included representatives of the Russian venture company (RVC), SKOLKOVO Foundation and the Agency for strategic initiatives (ASI) and the development Fund of Internet initiatives (FDII) and Microsoft has watched 135 student projects from seven cities of Russia. The final 21 projects. The winners were three teams.

In addition to Lexy, who took first place in the category "Innovation" for the chance to go to the international final will compete two more projects.

In the nomination "Social projects team won Galvani Bionix (MIPT) with the project Myoarm Control System. Myoarm Control System is a universal platform for contactless control devices, based on the detection of surface EMG signals of human muscles. The system can be primarily useful for the disabled with absence of the upper limbs.

In the category "Games" the first place took the team of IzHard (St. Petersburg) with the project om OVIVO is a game-platformer, where the hero travels through the black-and-white abstract world. The main feature of the project is the change of physical laws, like gravity and minimalist visual design. In the game, for example, there was no prospect. This is done so that the player could create custom images using your imagination.
Three winning teams of the Moscow tour will take part in the international online the semi-finals. It will identify the best projects, which the authors will be invited to the world finals at the Microsoft headquarters in Seattle.

According to the Microsoft spokesperson, the organizers and jury members of the Russian Imagine Cup happy with the results of the competition. "We managed to take a very strong projects, with the result that, as I've seen, the jury was very difficult to choose the winners. We had a very long time deliberating, after additional pitches to go and see the projects at the exhibition to understand the details and to reward the most deserving teams that will be able at the proper level to represent Russia at the international final. In General, the victory in the international final is an unpredictable thing, which depends on many factors. But we will cheer for our own", — said Dmitry Soshnikov.

To win the international final is difficult, but the Russians have already succeeded. So, the first place in Imagine Cup 2014 in the category "Games" took the team from Perm Brainy Studio project TurnOn. Prior to that victory in the competition was given to the Russians as many as 10 years ago — in 2005.

some of the material post we took from the reporting material SKOLKOVO



Here's the full list of all the winners:

Social projects:
1) bionix Galvani
2) Neocortex
3) Iris Check

Innovations:
1) Lexy
2) Lazybit
3) C4L

Games:
1) IzHard
2) WhisperArts
3) FantasticFour

Read more about our project can be found on the following social networks:

vk.com/lexybot
facebook.com/lexyRobot

Read our blog post: Igor Ashmanov about the future of domestic robots. Home robots: on the eve tornado

There are, of course, the direction of artificial intelligence, which is to understand how the human brain, and to repeat it in the metal and electrons. It is, in fact, the marginal direction, and from my point of view — a dead end. To explain in detail no time, I'll just say that this is my personal opinion.

Thus, AI is the scattering of tasks simulating a variety of human functions. The problem of creating a computer self-aware – among them, at least the developers, not the charlatans.

Thank you to the organizers!
Team lexi

Article based on information from habrahabr.ru