Today in Rostov-on-Don, within the walls of the Southern Federal University, a solemn awarding ceremony was held for the winners of the "SMART GUY" program from the Rostov region, including five young scientists of the YURSPU (NPI). The Minister of Economic Development of the Rostov Region Maxim Valeryevich Papushenko, the head of the representative office of the Foundation for the Promotion of Innovations in the Rostov Region Anna Vitalievna Pushenko and the Vice-Rector for Scientific and Research Activities of the SFU Anatoly Viktorovich Metelitsa attended the award ceremony as guests of honor. Another important part of the event was the report on the implementation of 28 projects of the winners of the "Smart Guy" in 2016 and the decision on their financing for the next year.

From our university, nine applications from young scientists of the university entered the final of the "SMART GUY"-2017 program, five of which were among the winners. The works of Alexander Vlasov, Svetlana Nekroenko, Roman Ohanyan, Anna Ulyankina and Vera Khoroshavina were highly appreciated by the competition commission and the Directorate of the Innovation Promotion Fund, and today our clever and clever women received a well-deserved award.

The UMNIK program, implemented on the basis of the Innovation Assistance Fund, is aimed at supporting commercially oriented scientific and technical projects of young scientists, students, researchers from 18 to 30 years old. The main goal of the program is to identify talented and creative young scientists, organizational and financial support for innovative projects. Thanks to the development of the "SMART GUY" program, in recent years there has been an increase in the interest of young people in participating in scientific and technical activities, as well as the emergence of new interesting and promising projects.

In order to be in the final of the "Smart Guy", it was always necessary to pass a serious selection. During 2017, 11 semi-final selections of innovative projects were held. 162 innovators from 11 cities of the Rostov and Volgograd regions took part in the qualifying events.

The winners of the semifinals also had a strict selection. Their works underwent a mandatory examination procedure, in which experts from other regions in the relevant disciplines additionally assessed the scientific novelty of each project. As a result, 63 authors of projects took part in the 2017 final - young scientists from 6 universities and two enterprises of the Rostov region and other regions of Russia, of which 23 specialists won. Among them are five of our "smart guys". The amount of financial support for each winning project was 500 thousand rubles.