ABOUT THE EVENT

On November 25, the 10th ceremony of awarding the winners of “ComNews Awards. The Best Solutions for the Digital Economy” organized by ComNews information group took place in Moscow. This year the award ceremony was divided into three blocks. The first block of nominations was devoted to solutions based on digital technologies from the “Digital Technologies” Federal Project of the “Digital Economy” National Program. The second block included innovative projects for vertical markets. Multi-technological and cross-industrial solutions were allocated to the third block.

This year more than 300 applications were submitted to the ComNews Awards competition. After their detailed study, 50 were shortlisted.

The first block was opened by the largest nomination, in terms of the applications number: “The best solution for the digital economy using artificial intelligence”. The award in this nomination was given to the project “Digital Assistant of Steelmaking Production” implemented by TMK. The “Digital Assistant” is based on machine learning models based on historical data, taking into account physical and chemical patterns. The economic effect of introducing the “Digital Assistant of Steelmaking Production” at TMK enterprises exceeds 1 billion rubles per year. The award was given to the Head of the Competence Center for Mathematical Modeling and Artificial Intelligence Methods of TMK Alexander Lunev.

The second most popular nomination among the participants was “The best solution for the digital economy using new communication Internet technologies”. Most of projects announced here were related to the creation of digital assistants and bots. The winner was the project “RuGeeks – Accessible Internet” from RuGeeks Rus company. This is a project of cloud content delivery network consisting of its own and others’ infrastructure capacities. The project uses Uber business model, paying the owner of the infrastructure a reward for using his device (for example, a server or a set-top box) and communication channel. The platform is based on the innovative patented algorithm for choosing the optimal route and infrastructure for delivering digital content to the user. The award was received by Financial Director of RuGeeks Rus, Petr Armand.

In the nomination “The best solution for the digital economy using new production technologies” the award was given to the project “Electro-mechanical centralizer” from Moskabelmet Company. Its operating principle is as follows: the ultrasonic scanner measures continuously the thickness of the lead shell. When detecting different shell thicknesses, the control system transmits a signal to the electromechanical centralizer that performs the necessary adjustment. The system operates both in automatic and manual mode and allows ensuring the concentricity of the lead shell along the entire length of the cable with minimum tolerances. The award was received by representatives of Moskabelmet Group: Pavel Chivkin, Deputy Director General, and Yan Anisov, Deputy Director General for Industrial Infrastructure Development and Innovation.

In the next nomination “The best solution for the digital economy in the field of robotics and sensorics” the award was given to the project “Equipment for automatic sorting and analysis of waste” by Nevlabs Company. The equipment for the automated waste sorting is implemented on the basis of robots (this part of the project is called “Gourmet”) and with the help of compressed air shooting (this part is called “Aesthete”). The main value of the project is the recognition module that is made using artificial intelligence. The award was given to Alexander Nevolin, Director General of Nevlabs Company.

In the nomination “The best solution for the digital economy using virtual and augmented reality technologies” the winner was the project “GlazzAR Augmented Reality Platform” of Petrosoft Company together with UEC-Klimov. GlazzAR is the augmented reality platform for automating the production processes of enterprise. With the help of GlazzAR, the enterprise can digitize and transform processes where people play a major role, by accelerating the development of their professional skills and providing instructions. Alexey Borisenko, Director General of Petrosoft, received the award on stage, and Alexander Kozak, Director of the Aviation Training Center of UEC-Klimov, joined him via video link as the representative of the customer company.

There were not as many applications in the nomination “The best solution for the digital economy using blockchain technology” as in other main nominations, but the participants who sent their applications tried their best to present their solutions by sending many additional visual materials. The DecimalСhain project from DECIMAL PTE. LTD won in the nomination. DecimalChain is a blockchain and a constructor of any kind of tokens. It is a simple and understandable tool for the mass user for the safe exchange of values and a “building set” of crypto currencies, so that any entrepreneur – from a first-timer blogger to a business giant – can issue its own currency without special technical skills. The user-friendly interface allows you to create easily and quickly your own digital coins without special skills for a variety of use cases. The award was received by Anatoly Berdnikov, Director General of DecimalChain, and Renata Dimova, PR Manager and consultant on enterprises tokenization of DecimalChain.

The seventh nomination of the technology block was “The best solution for the digital economy using the Internet of Things”. The award in this nomination was received by the project “Asset Monitoring Platform” of AggreGate Company. The project consisted in organizing the predictive maintenance of technological, commercial and IT equipment of Gazprom Neft gas stations network. AggreGate low-code IoT development platform was used as the platform. As a result of the project, the gas stations downtime has been reduced by 50%, operating costs for the entire network of gas stations has been reduced by 5%, the load on staff has been reduced by an average of 2 hours a day, repair time has been reduced by 21%, the average time of gas station operation has been increased by 20 hours per month. The award was received by Dmitry Moiseev, Sales Director of AggreGate, and Artemiy Saigin, Head of the monitoring and asset control systems development at Gazpromneft Center.

The second block dedicated to vertical markets was opened by a non typical nomination. For 10 years, ComNews Awards have been awarded to the companies: projects’ performers and customers. But this year, for the first time the organizers have retreated from this tradition. A special nomination from the organizers was awarded, not a project, but a person. Pavel Pogrebinsky received the award “For his personal contribution to the telecom and IT support of the world’s major sporting events in Russia”. Pavel Pogrebinsky devoted decades of his life to creation and development of very complex telecommunications infrastructure for the most famous World Football championships and sports competitions of the past years.

In the first nomination of the vertical markets block, “The best digital solution in healthcare”, the winner was the project “Cloud polyclinic (based on the “Medved.Telemed” system) by HOST Group. The Cloud Polyclinic service has been launched in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). It allows conducting online medical consultations for chronic patients and people at risk without visiting any medical organization, carrying out online health monitoring for COVID-19 symptoms. The service allowed reducing the workload and costs of medical staff due to automating the appointment and reducing the traffic of personal visits; reducing the cost of treating patients due to the timely provision of medical care; automating routine processes in the doctor’s activities. In 2020-2021, 27,563 consultations were held in the system, 445 doctors work, 63 medical institutions have already been connected to the Cloud Polyclinic. Natalia Prosvetova, Marketing Director of HOST Group, received the award via video link.

In the next nomination, “The best digital solution in transport and logistics”, the award was given to the project “Autonomous Navigation (A-Navigation)” from Sitronics KT. In December 2020, the Russian government approved a resolution on conducting an experiment to test autonomous marine vessels under the Russian flag. Three vessels of the commercial fleet of Rosmorport, Pola Rise and Sovcomflot companies participating in the experiment are equipped with Sitronics KT autonomous navigation technology. The award was received by Pavel Dreiger, Vice President for Software Products and Solutions of Sitronics Group, as well as Boris Kabakov, Director of the Department of Shipbuilding Industry and Marine Technology of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, as the representative of the customer.

In the nomination “The best digital solution in agriculture” the award was awarded to the project “AgroSignal Platform” of InfoBiS Company. This is a single platform and mobile application for the effective work of all departments of the enterprise at every stage of field work, from the formation of the production budget to the accounting of finished products and analytics. Preliminary assessment of the implementation effect: cost reduction up to 15%. The award was received by Svetlana Mizer, Director of Development of InfoBiS company, and Elena Zhuzhleva, Senior Dispatcher of Lazarevskoye Breeding Farm, as the representative of the customer.

The next nomination was “The best digital solution in the financial sector”. In this nomination, the award was given to the project “Creation of the Open Factoring Platform for SME Bank” made by NORBIT Company. The open factoring platform consists of three personal accounts of the supplier, the factor and the customer (buyer). Each of the participants has access to functionality corresponding to the process of concluding a factoring transaction and the payment of financing. A supplier, a SME entity, can apply for an unlimited number of factors in one space and receive proposals from them, conclude a factoring agreement, sign all the necessary documents with the customer and the factor to obtain financing. The platform reflects all information about transactions, shows the current status of monetary requirements (deliveries) in a single online space as well as the analytics on important business indicators. The award was received by Vladislav Ignatenko, Business Development Director of NORBIT Company, and the representatives of the customer, the Russian Bank for Small and Medium-Sized Entrepreneurship: Marina Steshina, Head of Technology and Projects, and Ilya Gorshkov, Chief Executive Officer of the Project and Technology Development.

The project “Information and communication educational platform “Spherum” from the company “Digital Education” won in the nomination “The best digital solution in education”. The Spherum platform is a part of the digital educational environment that the Ministry of Education and the Ministry for Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of Russia create in order to implement the national project “Education”. VK and Rostelecom are jointly developing the platform through the joint venture “Digital Education”. The platform is based on the technologies of the VKontakte social network. The award was received by Ruben Akopov, Director of the Project Office for Digitalization of Education of Rostelecom, Director General of Digital Education, and Sergey Mardanov, Director of Relations with Universities of VK, Deputy Director General of Digital Education. The award was presented to the laureates by Konstantin Makarenko, Adviser to the Director of the Department for Programs and Projects Coordination of the Ministry for Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of Russia.

In one of the most popular nominations of the industry block, “The best digital solution in the electric power industry”, the project “Neva. Digital sales” from SIGMA Company won. The Digital Sales solution made it possible to minimize the participation of personnel in customer service: from processing applications for the conclusion of energy supply contracts to processing readings and invoicing. Now it is enough for the client to submit an application in his personal account, fill out a questionnaire and sign an EDS, and after that the system will automatically start the whole process. In addition, the solution effectively controls the activities of several sales companies within a single system. This will make it possible to abandon the control of compliance with regulations within one holding company, since the management and control of customer service can now be centralized. The award was received by Vyacheslav Baburin, Head of the Billing Solutions Department of SIGMA, and Oksana Panova, Head of the Methodology and Retail Business Development Department of Inter RAO, as the representative of the customer company.

The project “Atom.Port Configurations Management System” made by Greenatom company won in the nomination “The best digital solution in the public sector”. The system of management of “Atom.Port” configurations is designed to automate import substitution processes and manage the infrastructure of workplaces of state and commercial medium-sized enterprises. The award was received by the Director of the Center for import-independent technologies of Greenatom Alexander Kondakov.

The largest number of all applications of the competition was sent to the final nomination of the block on vertical markets, “The best digital industrial solution”. The project “Inspector – control of quality and production timing” of the company "Digital Purchasing Services" (Isource brand) won in the hard struggle in this nomination. Isource Inspector is a digital service for proactive quality and production deadlines control in real time. The service combines a cloud-based automated control system, TV reception with online broadcast of key points of production and “live checks” by Isource inspectors. Inspector is a three-stage control of goods manufacturers available to customers online from any device. The awards were received by representatives of Isource brand: Dmitry Rudakov, Head of the project office, and Alexey Rodin, Leading Specialist of the department for work with corporate clients and commercial procurement. From the customer’s side it was Nikolay Astrakhantsev, Director of Economics and Finance of “Korobkov IZ-KARTEX” (“Izhorskiye Zavody - Quarry Heavy Excavators”). The award was presented by Konstantin Makarenko, Adviser to the Director of the Department for Programs and Projects Coordination of the Ministry for Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of Russia.

The final third block of special nominations was developed for unique projects that combine a whole range of digital technologies. In the first nomination in the field of ecology “The best digital solution in the ESG agenda” the project “Digital service “Video analysis of emissions into the atmosphere” from NLMK and VideoMatrix companies won. This service, using machine vision and trained neural network, monitors online the quality of emissions at Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant, signals when deviations occur and allows eliminating them promptly. The Video Analysis of Emissions service collects and stores data on all emissions that makes possible to build deep analytics based on them. The award was received by representatives of the customer company, Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant: Boris Ashrafyan, Head of the project IT office, and Maxim Prokhorchuk, Leader of the “Ecology” product team. From the performer’s side it was Anna Lapshina, a representative of VideoMatrix.

In the second special nomination, “The best solution in the field of improving operational efficiency”, the winner was the project “Implementation of Process Mining technology for analysis and optimization of the business process of B2C subscribers’ technical support of Rostelecom” made by T1 Integration Company. The project stands out for its level of complexity with several characteristics at once. During the project, large arrays of data from several information systems were linked together (196 million activity records in total), more than 700 thousand different routes for processing requests were identified and nine reference end-to-end scenarios were identified, more than 20 hypotheses about “bottlenecks” were formulated, which manifest themselves in different ways in different macroregions. Analyzing the process using classical methods would require a lot of money and would involve a very long feedback. Process Mining technology made it possible to explore the process faster and more clearly. The operator’s specialists have access to business process monitoring capabilities, the use of built-in Machine Learning tools and automatic response tools to detected problems in the process. The award was received by the representative of the performing company Sergey Lobov, Commercial director of T1 Group, and from the customer it was Arina Smotrova, Director of Rostelecom Corporate Center Programs.

The next project noted by the jury received the award in the nomination “The best solution using “digital twins”. The winner in this nomination was the project “Automation of the Russian Post Logistics Center”. A joint team of technical specialists from the Russian Post and Reksoft Company performed a comprehensive project to automate the Samara logistics mail center using the most modern technologies. At the very beginning of the project, a digital twin was developed that modeled completely the management of the complex with a total area of 15 thousand square meters consisting of more than 100 nodes and mechanisms of various levels of complexity. The project included transportation lines, sorting zones, packaging zones, tag and barcode recognition systems, dynamic weighing and automatic size determination systems, automated exits. The award was received by Nikolay Potapov, the representative of the performing company, Director of the business development department of Reksoft company, and the customer’s representative Semyon Tusaev, Head of the production automation department of Postal Technologies company.

In the special nomination “The best solution in the field of infrastructure for the digital economy” the winner was the project “Big Ural fiber-optic ring” of the “Zummer” company. The implementation of the project has made possible to achieve the main goal: to create a reliable, high-quality, zero-accident trunk communication line designed for a wide range of consumers. It became possible to combine in a single infrastructure facility the needs of fuel and energy companies, cellular and broadband operators, optical transport for the interaction of all levels’ authorities, and most importantly, to provide reliable and high-quality access of millions of users to the worldwide network. The award was received by Andrey Obukhov, Deputy Director of “Zummer” company.

In a special nomination “The best digital project of a Russian company on the international market” the winner was the project Cli.co from Intis Telecom company. Cli.co is the URL shortening service that competes with the well-known international services bit.ly and tinyurl. A distinctive feature of the Cli.co service developed by Intis Telecom is its full compatibility and the ability to integrate with SMS mailings, the ability to work with UTM tags and deep link. The award was received by Andrey Insarov, Director General of Intis Telecom.

The award for the public sector industry in the nomination “The best digital solution for a Smart City” went to the project “Gorod Online” from the company Edinstvo, part of Norilsk Nickel group. Edinstvo company creates and develops the platform of digital services Gorod Online, applying scaling of existing modern technologies and developing its own smart city solutions for the regions of the North, Siberia and the Far East. The main mission of the project is to improve the quality of life of people and create social and economic potential in the cities of presence. The target audience of the platform: cities residents, administrations, city-forming enterprises and local businesses. The award was received by Nikolay Ogurtsov, Development Director of Edinstvo company.

The special nomination “The best digital solution in the fuel and energy complex” was awarded to the project “The wireless broadband access system on the territory of the Eastern section of Orenburg oil and gas condensate field”. The wireless broadband access system is a high-tech communication complex that provides high-speed and secure data exchange between the productions sites of the enterprise and fishing facilities on the territory of the Eastern section of the Orenburg oil and gas condensate field. The implemented wireless broadband access system covers the area of more than 525 sq.km where the transmission of technological information in networks is organized using the cryptographic information protection systems according to a multiservice model with end-to-end multithreaded data encryption. The award was received by Alexey Sergeev, Technical Director of the Telecommunications Directorate of Gazpromneft ITO, and Ruslan Raimanov, Head of the Capital Construction Department of Gazpromneft-Orenburg.

In the final nomination of the evening related to the industrial sector, “The best digital solution in metallurgy”, the winner was the project "Digital Workshop" (at the site of the sheet-rolling workshop for the production of rolled pipes) of Severstal Digital. A set of models based on machine learning has been developed for the 5000 sheet rolling mill. The solution for controlling the rolling speed is based on a set of machine learning models: gradient boosting on decision trees (used to predict the maximum currents of motors driving rolling rolls), the nearest neighbor method (to estimate the initial approximation of the rolling speed based on historical data on similar types of rolling), a number of linear regression models using the casual-inference approach to determine the effect of speed on the maximum current. The award was received by Boris Voskresensky, Director of Severstal Digital, Lev Abramov, Project Manager of Severstal-Infocom, Kirill Tribunsky, Leading Developer of Severstal Digital, and Elena Smolnikova, Senior Data Analyst at Severstal Digital.

The projects were selected by a jury that included editors and reviewers of the portals ComNews.ru and Digital Economy, the magazine “Standard” and the analytical agency ComNews Research.

In the near future we will announce the dates of the XI competition “ComNews Awards. Best Solutions for the Digital Economy”, the winners of which will be awarded in November 2022.