DO-RA
The DO-RA project was born after the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan and was intended to be a gadget that worked as a personal dosimeter-radiometer and operated with similarly-named software, DO-RA.Soft, on any smartphone for mobile platforms: iOS, Android, WP, etc. as well as on stationary platforms: Windows/Linux/MacOS.
At the end of 2011, the DO-RA project caught the attention of SKOLKOVO. After the campaign's registration by a resident of Technopark and analysis of the project by Russian and foreign experts, the project was supported by the Skolkovo Foundation with a grant of $50,000. Later, as a part of this project, Intersoft Eurasia developers introduced a whole line of DO-RA compact gadgets for smartphones and computers, capable of measuring the ionizing radiation of X-rays, Beta or Gamma ranges in the environment, food products, water, and from other objects (potentially hazardous or contaminated with radioactive isotopes) as well as cosmic radiation in the cabins of airliners during flight.
However, the developers were so enthusiastic about inventing (their arsenal now includes 70+ Russian and foreign patents) that, at the beginning of their development, they produced more than 10 different DO-RA prototypes in batches of 100 units and presented them for free to domestic visitors of specialized exhibitions and around the world, to interested customers solely for marketing purposes.
In 2013, the development team executed the first contract for Rosatom as a part of the Safe City program, where Intersoft Eurasia sold 10,000 user software licenses and 10 server software licenses, recouping their costs with interest.
In 2014, Intersoft Eurasia received its 2nd grant for the development of the project from the Skolkovo Foundation in the amount of $1 million, which was announced in the press. At the same time, Vladimir Yelin, the project manager, Ph.D. in Engineering Science, received a call from the Dow Jones manager responsible for Europe and Russia, who was interested in such details as on what conditions investments were attracted to the DO-RA project, and is it true that “some” Foundation allocates significant money for innovations in Russia!? After confirming this event firsthand, the DJ manager suggested filling out a questionnaire, having explained that such companies from the DJ list might be of interested in venture investors or industrial capitalists in the United States.
Soon after, the manager sent the extract from the registry for DJ venture capitalists, where the capital of Intersoft Eurasia OJSC was assessed at $10 million.
Later there were many trips around the world: to the USA, Japan, China, South Korea, and Europe, where innovative solutions supported by grants of the similarly-named foundation were presented as a part of the Skolkovo Technopark delegation.
At the end of 2016, the co-investor of the project faced an economic crisis, and the developers of Intersoft Eurasia actually had no money for research and development and for growing the DO-RA project. It was a difficult time.
However, Vladimir Yelin, the head and founder of the project, did not give up and kept on searching for investors and partners in the Russian market in 2017–2018. Thus, after participating in a series of accelerations (in GenerationS with RVC, Ruselectronics, Voentelecom, and Russian aviation companies (Il, Myasishchev, and S7), and foreign Airbus) as well as in the Vektor State Program with the participation of Rosatom, the Skolkovo Foundation, etc., he managed to find an industrial partner, Sarapul Radio Plant JSC with 100-years experience in radio engineering and electronics production.
In Q1 2019, the Sarapul Radio Plant produced a pilot batch of 200 DO-RA.Q cross-platform ionizing radiation indicators with a dosimeter-radiometer function in the range of measured energies of 60 kW – 3.0 meV Gamma and Beta for mobile platforms: iOS and Android. By the middle of April 2019, the production of DO-RA.Q products in the amount of 2,000 units will be completed.
The first sales of a pilot batch of DO-RA.Q took place in March this year through the OZON Russian online store and General Distributor of DO-RA products, Status-Factor LLC.
Currently, the website of the Intersoft Eurasia developer displays the statistics of pre-orders in the amount of 6,780 requests for DO-RA devices.
According to the developer company, it has already started to design the next DO-RA model, DO-RA.badge/BLE, in the shape of a flat device with the dimensions of a credit card which operates with smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers through the BLE 4.0/5.0 remote protocol.
Information on the next steps of the domestic developer of compact personal gadgets is available at http://intersofteurasia.ru/.
