For the first time in Romania, institutions activating in the national security field launched a national competition for innovation, with the purpose to improve national security in the sight of future challenges, by attracting Romanian innovative human resources: PatriotFest.
The competition, organized by The Ministry of Defense, The Ministry of Internal Affairs, The Romanian Intelligence Service, The Special Telecommunications Service and The Protection and Guard Service in partnership with New Strategy Center, addressed Romanian innovators who were invited to present their innovations as functional prototypes. For the first edition of the competition, the organizers submitted 3 topics: Information Security, Artificial Intelligence and Human Machine Interface. 38 projects entered for the competition, of which, 32 were selected for jury and 10 projects were rewarded.
The prize of PatriotFest 2017 edition– Mr. Grigore Dumitru, MindMi project- psychometric system for fast psychological evaluation.
Section – Human Machine Interface
1st place – Mr. Cosmin Dugan, Concept One Project;
2nd place – Mr. Alexandru Lucian Georgescu, Web authentication service based on vocal mark;
3rd place – Mr. Bogdan Mihai Maxim and Mr. Alexandru Mihail, LiSpace 2017 Project;
3rd place – Mr. Mihai Popoiu and Mr. Nicolae Grădinaru, CNC Machine Project;
Section – Artificial Intelligence
1st place – Mr. Bogdan Bocșe – ‘VisageCloud’ Project;
Section – Information Security
1st place – Mr. Eduard Șuică, ‘R-RING’ Project – secured system for audio/video communications;
PatriotFest Special Prize – Mr. Ștefan Popa, ‘Read-Out Controller’ Project;
PatriotFest Special Prize – Mr. Ioan Burda, ‘Sense of touch teleportation: Haptic Interface’ Project;
PatriotFest Hope Prize – Mrs. Alexandra Stanciu, ‘Method to generate binary sequences used in cryptographic operations, based on RO PUF circuits (Physical Unclonable Function)
PatriotFest received NATO supporting messages from dr. Thomas Killion – NATO Chief Scientist. He expressed his interest in PatriotFest, emphasizing the support of the Romania’s Army for this initiative, as it is vital for areas such as national security to watch closely the technological evolution, to identify the risks and threats and to be preoccupied by innovation at the same time.
PatriotFest will continue in 2018 and in the next years too. It is more than a simple competition. This is about the trust in Romanian ingenuity, in our innovativeness, in the young generation brightness and, especially, about the trust in Romania.
The companies that provided support for this first edition are:
– The Gold Sponsor of PatriotFest 2017 – Olariu Computer Systems Company from Lugoj;
– Also, we express our gratitude to all the other sponsors of PatriotFest 2017: Primul Meridian, UPC, Patria Bank, Circinus Defense, Wolters-Kluver, Hexagon Geospatial and Interpixel.
At the same time, we tank media partners:
- The Romanian Television Society
- Adevărul
- Historia
- Army’s Media Trust