The “MEPhI Drone School” established at our university was among the top five winning projects of the “I-You-Moscow” Youth Initiatives Competition. The final of the competition was held on January 25 at VTB Arena as part of the Student Entrepreneurship Festival of the same name, which was attended by MEPhI Rector Vladimir Shevchenko.

Student Entrepreneurship Festival “I-You-Moscow”

The “MEPhI Drone School” has existed at our university since 2018. Its founders and leaders are Artem Ignatov and Vladimir Voronin, now engineers of the WorldSkills MEPhI Centre of Competences. First of all, the school was supposed to become a training centre for WorldSkills competitions in such competencies as “Operation of Unmanned Aerial Systems” and “Flying Robotics”. Thus, the School's students now fly drones made by their own hands.

The school has acquired quite a professional infrastructure, including a flying space in the new building of the MEPhI University. And if initially the work at the school was carried out mainly with students, then since 2020 students of the MEPhI pre-university lyceum joined it as well. Classes at the Drones School began to be held under the program of additional education, and a summer school was organized for schoolchildren. Since this academic year, MEPhI students can implement their projects at the “Drone School” as part of project practice.

The “MEPhI Drone School” 

A good idea should not go to waste, and at the “I-You-Moscow” competition, representatives of the “Drone School” came up with an initiative to scale up its activities. The idea was to extend the school's activities to other secondary and higher educational institutions in Moscow. And, judging by the results of the competition, it found support and approval from both the jury and the spectators of the festival (who also influenced the outcome of the competition with their votes).

The “Drone School” team won a number of valuable prizes, the most important of which were, without doubt, an invitation to the Youth Day at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum 2023, and a certificate for a year's participation in the closed “Business Environment entrepreneurial club”.