# startup diploma: find a way to clean pipes from scale with bacteria

Konstantin Nekrasov, a fourth-year undergraduate student of the Faculty of Geology and Geography, is one of the winners of the business game “Build a Company. Sell the Company”, which TSU launched with the TechnoSpark group of companies. The four students who won the selection received a paid entrepreneurial internship #startup diploma in the country's most efficient industrial park in the city of Troitsk near Moscow. For nine months, students receive, in fact, procurement of a technology company - with jobs, accounting, and legal support. The task of the internship participants is to turn the hypothesis into a commercial project.

Konstantin Nekrasov joined the game “Build a Сompany. Sell the Сompany” in 2019, studying in the third year of undergraduate studies. He entered the number of winners and accepted the offer of an internship at TechnoSpark.

- I was very interested in being in a new environment. I understood that it was not easy to combine internships with studies, but I believed that I could: I had before this experience of shift work for a month and a half during the semester, and I made up for the lost time and passed the session. Of course, it’s hard now: the fourth course is the most difficult in itself. But I do not regret that I took such a risk, - says Konstantin Nekrasov.

The project that he is engaged in at TechnoSpark is related to the environmentally friendly cleaning of pipes fr om scale with bacteria. First of all, the target customers of future service are industrial enterprises that use large containers for water. But in the future, the service may be useful for housing and communal services in general.

- So far, this project is at the starting level, - Konstantin explains. - Since I ended up on an internship, I have been involved in the preparation of terms of reference, the study of technology, and consulted with specialists from Moscow State University and the G. K. Skryabin Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Microorganisms, Russian Academy of Sciences. We have already signed a contract with one of the institutes for the development of fluids. But first, we need to find those bacteria that best help cope with the scum.

The path of the company and the project, with which Konstantin Nekrasov works, is periodically evaluated by senior colleagues from TechnoSpark and personally the general director and co-shareholder Denis Kovalevich. At first, the internship participants told him about their ideas, at the second meeting - about the intermediate results, about what was done correctly, wh ere the team was wrong, how the work plan changed and so on.

- In particular, we had suspicions that bacteria would still not be as effective in getting rid of scale as acid. Therefore, we returned to testing the original hypothesis. If the idea turns out to be viable - great, we will write a patent, develop our liquid and enter the market. If the hypothesis is unsuccessful, there will be a public report on this. But even in this case, I get a cool experience: it is very important to learn not to invest in a project that will not work. Business is built on this: you try and try - and only when you find the correct hypothesis, bring it to the end, - Konstantin Nekrasov emphasizes.