On May 18, 2026, the engineering competition “MELM vs Embedded Hack: the engineering code of the Ukrainian nation” took place, organized on the initiative of the V. M. Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the creation of MELM — the first small electronic computing machine in Ukraine. A significant contribution to the organization and coordination of the event from our university was made by the Head of the Department of Computer Science, B.O. Tishkov, and his deputy, Ya.Yu. Vozniuk. The jury included the Director of the Educational and Scientific Institute of Information Technologies in Economics of Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman, S.S. Vashchaiev, and Professor of the Department of Computer Science, M.L. Myrontsov.

Teams of students from leading higher education institutions took part in the competition, including Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman, Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, and Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, who presented their own hardware/software solutions in the fields of IoT, embedded systems, and intelligent cyber-physical systems.

In the first part of the event, the teams prepared demonstration stands and finalized the development of their MVP solutions, after which public presentations of the projects before the professional jury took place. During the evaluation, the jury considered: the relevance of the problem, the practical value of the project, the level of technical implementation, the stability of the prototype operation, and the quality of the team presentation.

The Department of Computer Science of KNEU was represented by two teams mentored by Senior Lecturer of the Department of Computer Science of KNEU, Yaroslav Vozniuk.

The Smart Parking System project team, consisting of Yevheniia Yurchenko, Sofiia Dimitrova, Ihor Kobzar, Anastasiia Zakharchuk, and Artem Pisnyi, presented an intelligent parking management system that included a physical model, software, and a demonstration of the system operation in real time.

The project covered the full cycle of operation of a cyber-physical system — from data collection and processing to decision-making and process management. According to the results of the jury evaluation, the project won second place.

The second team presented the project “Rocky,” developed by Vasyl Oliinyk, Oleksii Lytvynenko, Denys Shevchenko, Pavlo Oliinyk, and Dmytro Meleshchenko.

The team demonstrated a robotic system, presenting a practical embedded solution with elements of intelligent interaction. During the presentation, the participants demonstrated the operation of the prototype, the architecture of the solution, and the potential for scaling the project. As a result, the project received a special award from Oleksandr Skachkov, Director of the company ITERA.

Throughout the event, the participants actively interacted, exchanged technical ideas and experience in implementing their own solutions, and also familiarized themselves with the developments of other teams.

We sincerely congratulate the KNEU student teams on the successful representation of the university at the engineering competition and express our gratitude to the organizers, jury members, and partners of the event for supporting youth engineering initiatives, developing student science, and creating conditions for the implementation of innovative ideas.