Ivan Volkov, student of the SUSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, received a prize in the category “Social business of the year” for the development of a mobile app for individuals with diabetes.
Ivan proved that socially-significant projects are needed not just in the Chelyabinsk region but in the whole country.
“The organizers proposed my participation in this competition, and I decided to enter in the category ‘Social business of the year’. I gathered all my information, made a presentation, and wrote a plan for the presentation. Initially, we were given 6 minutes for the presentation of our projects, but on the day of the competition they reduced this time, because of which I had to significantly increase my talking speed and cut out some important information. There was a lot of competition, but we were able to win! The main thing is to try and work further and share experience with many interesting businesses in our region.”
The idea of creating the mobile application DiaMeter didn’t come to the student by chance: in the first year of his studies he had a constant thirst. The doctors gave him a very complex diagnosis – type one diabetes.
“I’ve lived with this illness for 14 years already, and at some moment I understood that there are no comfortable applications for entering an electronic journal for diabetes. The thing is that diabetics must measure their blood sugar eight times a day and five times a day must inject insulin. You must note the readings before and after food and show how much you ate, which is very uncomfortable to do on paper. Because of this, many patients with diabetes simply don’t create a journal.”
You can enter all your data from your account. They are saved to the server, and you can enter your account from any device.
At this time, the application is free on the Apple Store and Google Play.
Ahead of Ivan is a lot of work on perfecting the application: data exportation, the ability to share notes, and a calculator for bread units (used to evaluate the amount of carbohydrates in a product), while also developing the data analysis alongside all of this.
“There are still many details that need to be added to DiaMeter, so I haven’t had any time to think about other projects. But overall, in our company MeteorIT we are not limited to the application DiaMeter. We also create applications for other businesses who order.”
Last year, Ivan won a 400-thousand-ruble grant, having won the competition U.M.N.I.K. organized by the Fund for Supporting the Development of Small Businesses in the Scientific and Technological Industry. This year, he graduated from SUSU with honors and is already enrolled in the master’s program in the Fundamental informatics and informational technology academic program.
Ivan also has his own company for developing mobile applications, MeteorIT, in which they are bustling to perfect DiaMeter. Ivan wished future first-year students the most important – do what you love:
“If you want to try something new – try it; if you want to do something – do it! There is much more time than you think. The important thing is to choose your priorities carefully in important moments in life – what do you really like doing and what will be the most helpful for the future.”