BTU Team at Web Summit

A student team from Business and Technology University (BTU) has traveled to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, to participate in Web Summit, one of the world’s leading technology events. The students earned the opportunity to attend the event after winning UNI4VERSE, a university competition organized by Georgia’s Innovation and Technology Agency (GITA).

A total of 32 universities participated in the initial stage of the competition, while BTU’s team was named the winner among 28 universities in the final stage.

The BTU team presented Aegis, an innovative blockchain-based security system designed to monitor financial transactions initiated by artificial intelligence agents.

The platform allows users to define transaction limits, expiration dates, and approved addresses in advance, helping prevent unauthorized operations by AI agents and enabling users to maintain control over their finances.

Aegis’s key advantage lies in ensuring the security of financial transactions while maintaining user control. The system verifies transactions initiated by AI agents on the blockchain and automatically blocks those that violate predefined rules. The project also incorporates Zero-Knowledge technology to ensure the confidentiality of transaction limits.

The members of BTU’s winning team are:

• Mari Kobalava – Third-year student in the Bachelor’s Programme in Information Technologies;
• Aleksandre Tsiklauri – Fourth-year student in the Bachelor’s Programme in Information Technologies;
• Khatia Shvelidze – Third-year student in the Bachelor’s Programme in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence.

The team’s mentor is Stepane Gurgenidze, an invited lecturer at BTU and Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft.

In addition to securing the opportunity to attend Web Summit, the BTU team received a GEL 20,000 grant following its victory in UNI4VERSE. The funding will support the further development of the project.

UNI4VERSE is one of Georgia’s major university competitions, organized by the Innovation and Technology Agency (GITA) under the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, in partnership with the National Bank of Georgia. This year’s competition focused on financial technology and education.