On Aug. 29-30 Ukrainian energy hackers came up with new ideas of improving energy efficiency in Ukraine. The outdoor, solar-powered hackathon, a collaborative event attended by engineers, software developers and other specialists, called TeslaCamp, took place in Oseshchyna village, in Kyiv Oblast. It was organized by the Greencubator community, a group that promotes energy innovations and efficiency. Progressive specialists and young innovators from the energy sector shared their diverse vision of saving and generating energy, simultaneously introducing new inventions that could be used in everyday life
Roman
Zinchenko, 37, a co-founder of Greencubator, is sure that any transformation is
possible with human potential: “We started with the idea of supporting the green startups movement, but soon learned that energy culture should be accompanied by energy leadership, by new ambitions in the field For too many years Ukraine followed a ‘loser energy policy’ – but the price of such insecurity is much higher than we can afford. Thus, we seek new leaders with transformative energy innovations.”
Besides talks
about the cross-section of information technology and energy sectors, TeslaCamp attracted green innovators
like Dmytro Birjukov, 25. A founder and coordinator of KHackerSpace (Kharkiv), he demonstrated a modern do-it-yourself 3-D printer. “This
device works due to the FDM
(fused deposition modeling) technology but is
original in the process of printing as it augments the form layer by layer
instead of clipping it,” Birjukov says.
This
printer was built by Nikolay Khrystenko, another member of KHackerSpace, and
took half a year to implement the idea into reality. They both believe this technology is less costly and faster
than other ways to create real details and objects. Although it needs more time to become practically
popular, it could be very beneficial in medicine, defense and the space industry.
Greencubator
invited not only start-ups but people interested in promoting their energy efficient prototypes. Olesya Arhypchuk, 28, from Radekhiv (Lviv
Oblast) promotes her father’s development that helps to save gas with burning
off natural resources and, moreover, in such way to produce coal. “In fact, my
father, Anatoliy Arhypchuk, an entrepreneur, made out the way how to profitably
heat hospitals, schools, et cetera with biogas getting bio-raw staff which further can
be sold. The system can be easily connected to city boilers and is definitely
lucrative,” the woman says.
Another
practical device being already ordered is a portable multi-functional switching device which works in any hard to reach places. It amplifies the signal of mobile communications and has an additional function of built-in WI-FI which operates within a radius of 150 meters and provides speeds of up to 1 Mbit / s. Dina Dobronogova,
a deputy head of IMC in commercial issues, says their development can work
autonomously and has no analogues working in any conditions: “The advantage of
our device is an autonomous operation which is possible even under heavy rains, without
recharging for a week,” Dobronogova says.
The
inventions of the Greencubator participants may influence Ukraine’s energy system in the future. “This year is crucial for the energy system too.
We have to deal with our dated approaches and shift to smart and sustainable energy
solutions,” Zinchenko states.
Kyiv Post staff writer Iryna Matviyishyn can be reached at [email protected].
