In March an innovation school Startup Unit took place in Akadempark, Novosibirsk. Participants presented business and innovation experts their projects they were working on for three weeks. NSU Department of Natural Sciences PhD Students Ghadeer Jdeed and Lina Al Allaf told about their project aimed to establish interaction between researchers working in the lab in the fields of biology and chemistry. This product became one of 11 winners of the school.
Ghadeer commented,
Actually, It was quite encouraging! Being the only international student in the school presented some challenges at first, but non the less, the lectures quality, the professionalism of organizers and experts who taught us, made it possible to gain as much knowledge as possible in this short period of time and even finish a prototype of the project! I also made many friends and felt that by the end of the course the real prize was the useful, real life knowledge we gained.
Tetrad – a cross-platform app for researchers. It could solve different problems. For example, the app helps young researchers who just started their lab work get to know what their lab is about, who is working on which projects. For lab members in general the app will help to organize work better. Also Tetrad has some practical functions regarding the research process itself.
Ghadeer explained the idea,
Sometimes integrating in a new lab and learning about everybody can be challenging! Me being a student working in the professor`s Nina Tikunova laboratory (Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine SB RAS), and talking to other friends in similar positions, we sense the need and enthusiasm for the app from the researchers I interviewed, and from senior scientists who liked the idea of such an app.
The project is at the prototype stage. Project team has finished all the necessary steps regarding forming the business plan within the time of the Startup Unit school. And now they are already finding programmers who are students of NSU and planning to apply for grants for students and keep working on the project until the app becomes a reality.
Presenter of the project added,
Winning was an amazing, encouraging surprise and the cherry on the top of those amazing three weeks! I encourage everyone to take part in similar schools. And I would like to thank my beautiful wife, who supported me during those weeks!
