The KBSU team won the Start-AI-1 competition held by the Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises (FASIE)

The team from the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems and Data Analysis (LISAD) of the Institute of Electronics, Robotics, and Artificial Intelligence at the Kabardino-Balkarian State University named after Kh. M. Berbekov won the Start-AI-1 competition (stage 2) of the federal project «Domestic Solutions.» The project by the KBSU team, which included research fellow Timur Bitsuev and Institute Director Zamir Shomakhov, was recognized as one of the best and recommended for funding. The grant amount is 3 million rubles.

The competitive selection process, conducted by the Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises (FASIE), attracted hundreds of applications from across the country. The KBSU team presented their project, «Development of an intelligent medical decision support system, CardioRisk Assistant, with an explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) module and automated data extraction from medical records (NLP).»

The CardioRisk Assistant system, currently under development, is an intelligent service for primary care physicians. It allows them to assess the risk of coronary heart disease with an accuracy of over 93% in just 30 seconds.

The solution’s innovative nature lies in its hybrid artificial intelligence architecture, which combines:

– an ensemble of machine learning models for highly accurate risk stratification;

– a natural language processing (NLP) module for automatically extracting clinical data from medical records;

– an explainable AI (XAI) module for visualizing risk factors, which is critical to increasing physician confidence in the system’s predictions.

The project is based on the team’s many years of scientific and technical expertise, supported by five scientific publications, including those recommended by the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC).

«Preparing and defending the application required our utmost concentration and attention to every detail,» comments Timur Bitsuev, LISAD research fellow and developer of the experimental prototype. «But it was precisely this challenge that allowed us not only to prove the viability of our research direction but also to further develop the architecture of the future system. We are confident that our experience preparing for and participating in competitions of this level is the best training for young scientists, helping them master project management skills and interact with federal development institutions.»
The implementation of this large-scale project was made possible thanks to the coordinated work and support of our partners. The team expresses its sincere gratitude to the KBSU Technology Transfer Office (Director: Beslan Kanshaov, Deputy Director: Zaur Altudov) for their consulting support and commercial potential assessment; the KBSU University Polyclinic (Chief Physician: Venera Terchokova) for their willingness to provide a clinical site for testing and validating the system; and KABBAK-INTURIST LLC for their interest in the product and confirmation of the development’s relevance in the spa and resort services segment. Marat Kulbaev, regional representative of the Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises (FASIE), for prompt consultations and assistance in navigating the Foundation’s requirements.

Winning the Start-AI-1 competition is a significant event not only for the laboratory but for the entire university. It confirms KBSU’s high scientific and technical potential in the field of AI and opens up new opportunities for the commercialization of domestic developments for the benefit of the region and the country.