Editor’s Note: The Cozad New Venture Challenge provides University of Illinois startups with an opportunity to compete for a pool of $500,000 in funding. Gies College of Business is a co-sponsor of the 2025 event, and this year, 57 Gies-led teams are participating in the contest, up from seven in 2024. This is one in a series of features on Gies teams participating in this year’s Cozad, which culminates in the finals on April 17.

By day, Dmitry Moiseev leads a software/hardware development team for Cambium Networks, a spinoff of Motorola. Moiseev, who lives in suburban Chicago, is in his second year in the Gies iMBA program and expects to graduate in December.

“The iMBA has helped me turn technical ideas into real business opportunities,” he said. “Courses like Strategic Innovation and Marketing Management have pushed me to focus on market validation and clear storytelling, which is crucial for startup ideas.”

He is already applying what he has learned in industry and through his studies at Gies to develop SkyLinkX, a startup promising to be a source of wireless connectivity in drones.

Moiseev (right) notes that current communication modems are prone to interference, making it a challenge to travel long distances. Using interference mitigation techniques, he is making it possible for drones to travel longer than those off the shelf.

SkyLinkX provides three options. The first is a private network, which is especially useful for agricultural needs, like surveying a field. In that option, SkyLinkX will allow the consumer to set up a private network through a ground station connecting to a receiver in the drone. The second option, for longer trips, puts a SIM card in the drone and operates through cellular networks like a mobile phone.

“In that scenario, it connects to their infrastructure and my cloud,” Moiseev explains.  “The cloud exposes the Application Programming Interface (API) to the existing software so you can connect your drone seamlessly to the existing drone software.”

The third option is a hybrid, which would use a local infrastructure when there is coverage and a cellular network when there is not.

Moiseev is trying to fill the gap in the market. He says that the current options are either very cheap with limited distance capability or on the expensive side (around $6,000), giving consumers the drone and the infrastructure in one.

“There are currently no real options in between,” he said. “My target audience is not necessarily the end consumer, but the vendor of the drone solutions, who is targeting a specific use case.”

For instance, some companies specialize in taking aerial photos of crops and while others are using drones to make deliveries.

Through its Origin Ventures Office of Entrepreneurship, Gies College of Business is supporting entrepreneurial activities of both on-campus and online learners. The Origin Ventures Office fosters knowledge creation and dissemination from top faculty in the field, and it designs and offers the curriculum needed to bring that knowledge to the classroom. The office houses iVenture, an accelerator for top student startups at the University of Illinois, and co-sponsors the Cozad New Venture Challenge.

In addition to potential funding, Moiseev is using Cozad as an avenue to perfect his pitch and get feedback on his idea. He has proof of concept and plans to approach drone vendors and manufacturers later this year. Based on all the feedback, he’ll set up a business plan from there.

“For all these drone vendors, I would like to bring them the solution for the connectivity so they can do their business application without thinking about the connectivity,” Moiseev said.