Salimzhan Gafurov

Salimzhan Gafurov is a co-founder of Logibot, a role he took up in November 2025. He is based in Croatia, and his stated areas of expertise are early-stage startups, engineering, technical leadership, software development and mobile robotics. From February 2025 to January 2026 he was an entrepreneur in residence at BEAM.

He joined Verne in October 2022 as head of vehicle AI, going on to serve as director of software development from January 2023 and as director of advanced research and technology from January 2025 until January 2026. Before that he was director of the robotics department at OZON.ru and head of the Artificial Intelligence and Robotic Systems Centre at JSC NIIAS, and at Innopolis University he was a senior research scientist and head of laboratory. He owned Laboratoriya Bionicheskikh Sistem from 2017 to 2021.

Earlier, at Samara State Aerospace University, he was a postgraduate and mechanical engineer, a lecturer, head of laboratory and associate professor, and he was a junior researcher at Lappeenranta University of Technology. He began his career as a process engineer at Saturn Aviation.

Gafurov holds a PhD in aeronautics and aerospace science and technology from LUT University and a Candidate of Technical Science in aerospace from Samara State Aerospace University, where he also earned degrees in aviation engines and power plants and in mathematical methods in economics.