KYIV. April 21 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Former co-host of MythBusters television show Jamie Hyneman believes that technology is a universal language, but it should be treated with respect.
“Technology is a kind of a universal language… I am somewhat of a critic of all the smart phones and everybody keeping tabs on them all the time and not existing in the real world. But it also seems to be that culture and technology are diffusing through and being communicated around the world,” he said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Friday.
Hyneman noted that there has been a growing public interest to science in the last decade. But he does not think that MythBusters should take credit for this. The TV show rather was very fortunate to appear in the right time and take advantage of this surge of interest, he said.
According to him, such an increase in interest in science could be caused in part by the spread of the active use of the Internet and thus the availability of information.
The former co-host of MythBusters said people should not to be afraid of technology, but should treat it with respect.
“I don’t think that we should be afraid of technology, we should embrace it, but treat it with respect and with careful thought,” Hyneman said.
On April 22, Hyneman will be a member of the panel of judges of the engineering startup competition, the Vernadsky Challenge, in Dnipro.
The Vernadsky Challenge competition has been held since 2015. It allows talented engineers and inventors to present their projects and compete for a UAH 2 million grant. Over the 3-year history of the Vernadsky Challenge, 576 startups have participated in the event and the winners have received a total of UAH 3 million in grant funding.
Vernadsky Challenge 2017 has attracted applications from 230 startups. The panel of judges is headed by competition founders Dmitry Sholomko, Google Ukraine director, and Noosphere Ventures founder Max Polyakov.
KYIV. April 21 (Interfax-Ukraine) – China Harbour Engineering company Ltd. has won an open tender to implement the first stage of the project to reconstruct the marine approach canal and internal water approach canals to deep-water berths of Yuzhny maritime merchandise port (Odesa region), offering the service for UAH 1.065 billion with the expected price of UAH 1.197 billion.
According to the tender results announced on Thursday, the initial price of the company was the smallest (the closest rival Novadeal, the subsidiary of Belgium’s DEME Group it was UAH 1.179 billion). The price did not change during the tender.
Boskalis International B.V. (the Netherlands) took part in the tender. The company cut the price from UAH 1.197 billion to UAH 1.178 billion. The final offer of Jan De Nul N.V. (the subsidiary of Belgium’s DEME Group) was UAH 1.113 billion. Van Oord Ukraine (representative office of Van Oord Dredging and Marine Contractors B.V., the Netherlands) had the final offer of UAH 1.179 billion. Novadeal did not change its offer during the tender.
As reported, Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers on April 19 approved a project on reconstruction of water approach canals and operation zones near berths, taking into account the promising cargo turnover at Yuzhny maritime merchandise port. The total estimated cost of the project in the prices as of October 27, 2016 is UAH 4.183 billion. It will take three years and two months to finish the project. The project would have four stages.
KYIV. April 21 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Boryspil International Airport, the largest airport in the country, predicts the emergence of an acute need for rail link with Kyiv in 2020-2021.
“At such a rate of growth, we will have an urgent need to organize rail transportation of passengers to the airport in three years. And this is the task that should be solved only in cooperation with Ukrzaliznytsia, Kyiv city administration and the airport,” airport head Pavlo Riabikin said at the Ukrainian Infrastructure Forum in Kyiv.
According to him, this will entail a number of investment projects in the territory of the enterprise, which will be implemented involving investors.
KYIV. April 21 (Interfax-Ukraine) – PJSC Dniprovahonmash (Dnipropetrovsk region), a large car building enterprise in Ukraine controlled by TAS Financial and Industrial Group, in 2016 sold 404 wagons, while in 2015 only 68 wagons were sold.
According to the company’s annual financial statements, production of wagons grew by 5.7 times, to 402 cars.
Taking into account these indicators, the unconsolidated net income of Dniprovahonmash (excluding subsidiaries) increased by 5.3 times in 2016 from 2015, to UAH 324.12 million, and net profit amounted to UAH 4.61 million against a loss of UAH 74.68 million a year earlier.
The plant’s subsidiary, PJSC Stalzavod, last year more than quadrupled sales of products in natural terms, to 2,408 tonnes.
According to the consolidated financial statements of the company, which, in addition to Stalzavod, takes into account the performance of DVM Trading House (Russia), its net income in 2016 increased by 5.3 times, to UAH 385.49 million, net profit was UAH 12.76 million against a loss of UAH 98.96 million.
BILA TSERKVA. April 21 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Biofarma LLC manufacturer of blood products (Kyiv) intends to invest $5 million in the development of new medicines within five years, company president Kostiantyn Yefymenko has said at a press conference at the enterprise in Bila Tserkva (Kyiv region).
“In the next five years we will spend $5 million on the development of new drugs and conducting preclinical trials,” he said.
In addition, according to Yefymenko, Biofarma plans to invest about $10 million in the construction of blood plasma collection centers.
“We will invest about $10 million in the construction of plasma collection centers. We have already built a modern center in Sumy, in which we invested $3.5 million. European experts recognized that our center is better than its international counterparts,” he said.
According to the company president, over the next five years Biofarma intends to invest $40 million in building a new fractionator for production of plasma preparations and clotting factors.
For the implementation of the projects the company intends to attract own funds, as well as borrowed resources. In particular, Biofarma signed a contract with Raiffeisen Bank Aval on opening a ten-year line of EUR10 million for 10 years, as well as a $5 million contract with BNP Paribas.
KYIV. April 21 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Over 2,700 pharmacies have signed contracts to participate in the government-sustained program to reimburse the cost of medicines to treat cardiovascular diseases, bronchial asthma and type 2 diabetes mellitus, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Rozenko said at a conference on Thursday.
“I want to pay attention that at the Health Ministry’s website there is an interactive map of the entire territory of Ukraine where one can find a pharmacy that is taking part in the Affordable Medicines program in own region. This service is ready and it is being filled with new pharmacies,” he said.
Acting Health Minister Ulana Suprun said that the reference pricing helped to cut the prices of the medicines which international nonproprietary names (INN) are placed on the list of the reimbursement program, but not participating in it.
She said that the price of some medicines made both in Ukraine and abroad has fallen by 50% since early 2017.
Suprun said that in the near term the ministry plans to conduct a poll on its website regarding the implementation of the Affordable Medicines program.
