Hi, Habr!
We, in the Robotics Laboratory of Sberbank, together with the IIDF, have launched a project accelerator in the field of intellectual robotics. The program is focused on the creators of personal assistant robots, logistics robots, collaborative industrial robotic manipulators, unmanned aerial and ground vehicles, industrial exoskeletons. Under the cut - our arguments about how we see the area of robotics in Sberbank, as well as the conditions and terms of participation in the accelerator.
About the collaboration of labor and knowledgeA couple of million years of evolution of hominids ennobled our species - hunting for the game by the pack began to be called team work. For a person, homo sapiens, to unite with others to achieve goals is quite natural and normal. We easily (if we do not discuss politics and football) find a common language and can achieve amazing things when we work together - to build pyramids and spaceships.
Relatively recently (compared to the evolution of man) machines appeared in our civilization that can not only work better than man, but also work together with him. It seems that it happened just in time, because at the same time another thought appeared that captured the consciousness of the mass media and many people - the robots enslave the person by staging a riot of machines, and then all will be back.
The concept of "robots will replace people" is in antagonism with the concept of "robots work together with humans." For the economy, this is generally unequivocal: the meaning of any automation is not to reduce people, sometimes humiliatingly called “permanent staffing units”, but to increase labor productivity and ultimately increase the competitiveness of the enterprise and the country.
Since then, in 2010-2011. in Germany, the program Industry 4.0 was born, a lot of water has flowed (and euros). Experts participating in the implementation of this program in Germany are already talking more about improving the efficiency of human-machine interaction within the program than about “completely deserted workshops”: collaborative robotics allows a person to be not a digital administrator or operator, but a kind of conductor of a digital orchestra. Such a “private Industry 4.0” combines two roles in its work. The first role - the work at the machine, conveyor or robot, the performance of production functions. The second role is the manager of knowledge, data flows and bits flowing through a given conveyor, machine or robot. At the beginning of the 20th century, R. Taylor separated these roles. Now they are again merging into a single employee: the collaboration of a machine and a person will become a collaboration of labor and knowledge.
About platforms and markets
Slightly paraphrasing the old saying “if you don’t pay for a product, then you yourself are a product”, we dare to say that those organizations that do not create their own platforms are the foundation for foreign platforms. Sberbank, being the country's largest organization, creates its own platform for building the entire digital ecosystem. One can argue for a long time about what a platform is (and one should argue), but for simplicity we will define a platform as a digital environment in which access, production and distribution of content, services or products has a marginal value close to zero. But if we build our platform, then we need to focus on our own domestic market.
It is considered that service and financial organizations are not related to production and logistics. But this is an erroneous, superficial judgment. For three hundred thousand Sberbank employees, uninterrupted, uninterrupted and accurate logistics means being able to do their job well (and get paid for it) and serve customers. Sberbank's logistics service delivers approximately 20 kg of various goods to each employee each month.
In the context of the entire organization, it is tens of thousands of tons of cargo that are delivered accurately and smoothly to everyone - from an employee of our branch in Blagoveshchensk to the President of the bank. But such accuracy and reliability is enough to constantly think about reducing logistics costs. However, only automation of logistics operations will be able to reduce costs simultaneously with the improvement of critical indicators, such as accuracy and reliability of delivery.
This is only part of what we call modern financial organizations. Yes, the "cache in your pocket" is an anachronism. But about 10% of global GDP is in the cache. And as much as we would like, the share of cash in circulation is growing. At least - in the horizon of ten years. One Sberbank processes about seventy thousand tons of banknotes annually. Take another problem of our country - roads and bridges. The collection team can travel hundreds of kilometers and spend hours to take cash from point A to point B. Although from A to B in a straight line - 10-15 kilometers.
Photo: New York TimesRobots and humans
The answer to the "platform" challenges is robotics. Actually, to solve such problems, we created the Robotics Laboratory in mid-2017. The priority areas of its work are collaborative industrial robot manipulators (also called cobos), logistics warehouse robotics, land and air unmanned vehicles, personal robot assistants and industrial exoskeletons.
We have already
demonstrated some of the results of our work publicly. However, this is only the beginning of our work. But not all projects Laboratory of Robotics can do independently. It is better to do projects with other teams that have similar goals, mission and develop the technologies we need.
Photo: SberbankNot only robots can be collaborative, that is, working together with people. In Sberbank, we decided to launch an acceleration program of a new type for startups from the above listed areas. Usually a good acceleration program is launched by a specialized organization in which there are experts who know how to start a new business. They can find customers, partners - those who can buy a new product created under such a program.
Our accelerator uses all the good things in such programs, which is why our partner is the Internet Initiatives Development Fund. We add one important and unique thing - start-ups that come into our program, which will be located on the same site as our engineers working on projects relevant to the bank. We call this the collaborative accelerator, because collaborative project development is the best, fast and reliable way to get a contract from a customer. In this case, the result of the accelerator may be a contract not with the bank, but with one of the clients or partners of Sberbank. Logistic robotics, an example of which we considered above, is needed not only to the bank, but also to all our clients.
60 seconds to customer
The first acceleration program at the Robotics Laboratory site will begin in September and last for three months. During this time, the selected teams will be able to gain access not only to the laboratory engineers, but also to potential customers from the business units of Sberbank. This will allow start-ups, based on the tasks set and constraints voiced by the customer, to refine the prototypes of their decisions, form a value proposition to the bank’s concerned business unit, find points of business growth and channels to attract new customers.
Participation in the accelerator for teams is free, but for Sberbank this is not a charity project - we are looking for partners with whom we can further develop the robotics market together. Therefore, any team can offer us their project (for this you need to
fill out an application on the site before July 15), but we will select only the best ones in the program, having carried out several stages of expertise.
Schedule for the accelerator of Sberbank's intellectual roboticsThe text was prepared by Albert Efimov and Oksana Petrova from the Sberbank Robotics Laboratory