The 3rd "RoboCode" Camp of "ASAN Service" has concluded

The "RoboCode III" robotic coding camp, jointly organized by the Innovation Center of the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, "Silicon Valley Bilisim," and "SAHA Robotics," and sponsored by Expressbank, has come to a close.

The closing ceremony was attended by Vusal Rustamov, Director of the Innovation Center; Tuba Oztepe, Deputy CEO of Silicon Valley Bilisim; Nida Emin Kirishchi, ecosystem development specialist; Burak Can Kaya, Head of Robotics Behavior and Navigation Systems at SAHA Robotics; camp participants; and other guests.

Prototypes developed by the 5 teams that formed during the camp and advanced to the final stage were evaluated by a panel of judges.

The winners earned the right to participate in an internship program at SAHA Robotics and to benefit from a 1-year office space at Silicon Valley Bilisim. In addition, the winning team that fully develops and completes their project will have the opportunity to participate in the "Take Off Istanbul" startup summit.

Over the course of the one-month camp, more than 150 applications were received in total, and 105 participants selected based on set criteria received training in both online and in-person formats. The training program covered technological topics such as "Fundamentals of ROS 2," "SLAM Algorithms," and "ROS 2 Tools and Custom Environment Creation in Gazebo," as well as training in entrepreneurship and team building.

Since the camps began in 2023, a total of 924 applications have been received across all three editions, with more than 300 applicants earning the right to compete.

The camp is held within the framework of a cooperation protocol signed in 2023 between the Innovation Center and Silicon Valley Bilisim Baku. The goal is to facilitate access to autonomous systems, robotics, and automation technologies, and to equip young people who wish to specialize and build careers in this field with knowledge and skills related to the ROS (Robot Operating System) ecosystem. Supporting participants in developing their projects in this area through the promotion of innovative solutions is also among the priority directions.

Bakcell, the First Mobile Operator and the Fastest Mobile Internet Provider of Azerbaijan signed a cooperation agreement with the INNOLAND Incubation and Acceleration Center of the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations under the President of Azerbaijan.

At the official signing ceremony, held on December 20th at the INNOLAND Incubation and Acceleration Center, Bakcell CEO Nikolai Beckers has pointed out that application of innovations and supporting startups is one of the main priorities of Bakcell strategy: “It is a known fact that Bakcell is one of the first companies in the country to support various projects aimed at development of startups. Our “AppLab” incubation center is one of the rare environments where some of the country’s most interesting projects are accumulated. I’m confident that our cooperation with the newly opened INNOLAND center will contribute largely to development of the country’s entire startup ecosystem and will become one of the most successful partnerships in the area of innovations”.

Director of the "Innovation Center” Tagi Taghi-Zade spoke about the importance of this cooperation, being a public-private partnership. It was noted that the main goal of this partnership is to support entrepreneurship ecosystems for technology startups in our country and to implement high-level cooperation that serves the needs of emerging technology entrepreneurs. Cooperation between parties will have a great significance in terms of establishing a startup culture in Azerbaijan, developing a spirit of innovative entrepreneurship and startup ecosystems, supporting existing initiatives, creating conditions for the application of innovative initiatives in the current economic processes of the country, forming a motivating factor for the development and creation of various discoveries and other innovations.

It should be noted that INNOLAND is an incubation, acceleration and research center created to develop the private sector, promote innovation and expand the startup movement both in Azerbaijan and beyond its borders. INNOLAND consists of the Co-working, Incubation, Acceleration and IT Training and Education Center.

The AppLab program of Bakcell will from now on function as an Acceleration Center to continue supporting the startup project in a broader format. Since the year 2014, local startups and developers engaged in creation of various hardware and software receive support from Bakcell for implementation of their ideas.

Being a known leader in innovation, Bakcell constantly supports the local startups, as well as project implemented in the area of education, science and technology.

The second training session was held as part of the “RoboCode III” robotics coding camp.

During the session titled “Analysis of ROS2 Node and Topic Structure and Practical Implementation,” participants explored the logic of nodes in ROS2, message flow management through topics, and the working principles of the publisher–subscriber model through practical examples.

Throughout the training, participants worked on message transmission and building internal communication processes within the system based on real-world scenarios. They gained both a solid theoretical foundation and deeper understanding by applying their knowledge directly in code.