11/04 2012

Students of ORT network schools, participants and winners the 3rd International Contest "Robotraffic" received awards from the IBS Group

Moscow, April 11, 2012. Today at the IBS Group office a ceremony of delivery of awards and valuable gifts to the teams of winners and participants of the 3rd International Competition "Robotraffic» held March 15, 2012 at the Leumi Robotics Center of Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of Israel Institute of Technology "Technion" was organized. Participating of school teams of ORT network from Russia and Ukraine in this competition was provided with the support of the Group of IBS.The major goals of this competition are to familiarize the students with the traffic laws; provide understanding of the limitations of the car and driver; motivate developing sensors and systems by students that in the long run, will be implemented in real systems in order to reduce the number of car accidents; educate the students in the high tech multi-disciplinary area of robots and sensors; develop team working environment.

"Robotraffic-2012» - 3rd International Competition, dedicated to the use of robots to improve traffic safety. Students team programmed miniature robotic vehicles traveling on specially marked course were competing there.

This year, the final stage of the competition was held March 15, 2012 at the Leumi Robotics Center of Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of Israel Institute of Technology "Technion". Along with 16 school teams from Israel there were 8 teams from Vilnius, Dnepropetrovsk, Kiev, Kishinev, Moscow, Odessa and St. Petersburg participated. With the support of IBS represented by subsidiary Luxoft Company, students’ teams from ORT Technology Schools in Russia and Ukraine have been able to realize their dream and to go to a prestigious international tournament and make a sensation, winning prizes in several nominations.

In "Careful Driving" team of the Dnepropetrovsk city special school "Ohr Avner Chabad-Lubavitch" named after Levi Yitzchak Schneerson # 144 took first place for not making even a single mistake in both rounds. The team of Moscow ORT Technology School (Gymnasia № 1540) was awarded by the second place. A team of Kiev ORT Technology Lyceum took the second place in "Racing". The team of the Moscow ORT Technology School was the best among the foreign (non-Israeli) teams in the test for knowing of traffic rules.

ORT institutions have traditionally been the leading in technological education. Their graduates continue their studies at prestigious universities in their countries and abroad. Participation of ORT teams in "Robotraffic" competition became possible by the organizational and material support of ORT partner, the largest Eastern European software developer - Luxoft Company, a member of the IBS Group.

Expressing gratitude to the IBS Group for their help and support, Director of ANO "Educational Resources and Technological Training" (ORT) Sergey Gorinskiy said: "I'm from the generation of those who gathered in the soap dish transistor radios at school and runs on waste ground the missiles with an engine made of the 12-caliber sleeve. I was very lucky in life, and after I had finished Physics and Technical Institute, by and large, doing the same, but as the "grown-up." The technologies that we had created with my former classmates are as good as the world's best models even now. But it is no secret that in recent decades students’ interest to the technique fell down. As a consequence, with rare exceptions, our country is gradually becoming an importer of high-tech products, buying them for petrodollars. Among these exceptions, and so are our partners - IBS and Luxoft, who are not only leaders in the field of high technologies, but also support education.

The support provided by IBS and Luxoft to ORT network schools in the study of robotics is beyond conventional sponsorship. This is a substantial contribution of high-tech companies in the school technology education in Russia, which is modestly celebrated the twentieth anniversary this year. It is sad that during these twenty years, a change of name in the school schedule ("Technology" instead of "Labor") did not lead to a fundamental change in the content. School seems stuck in the past century. Without the support of high-tech businesses are unlikely to "pull out" school of the XXI century and to raise children's interest in engineering education.

ORT teachers. In turn, representatives of the IBS Group: Luxoft Vice President Technology Strategy Vasiliy Suvorov, Deputy Director General Vice President IBS Group Leonid Zabezhinsky and IBS Group PR Director Evgeny Kutilov told the young engineers and programmers about the prospects of the use of intelligent technologies in the automotive industry and how IBS specialists in different countries today pose a "smart car of the future." Luxoft Division is actively engaged in the development of software technologies such as communications systems between vehicles (car-to-car), information and entertainment systems, telematics and on-board Internet access. To date, Luxoft Automotive is a team of 400 professionals with extensive experience in programming real-time systems and embedded systems, specialized in the development of automobile interfaces, making the wireless and mobile networks. The customers of these solutions are the world's largest automakers."