Kaluga and the Kaluga region are known in Russia for their powerful automotive industry. It looks like the region can now be proud of its IT sphere, with flagship company Kaluga Astral in the forefront. The biomedical sphere is also becoming stronger. Such conclusions can be drawn from the Russian StartUp Tour’s visit to Kaluga.
Anton Voropaev, a leading analyst of the project office for the commercialization of the Skolkovo Foundation and co-organizer of the tour, said in an interview that Kaluga Astral, a company well known to all who have done their taxes reports online, hosted the team of experts and mentors on the tour at their brand-new IT park. This IT center opened just a couple of weeks ago. The plenary session was opened by the curator of innovation in the region, deputy governor Maxim Shereykin, who has spearheaded many projects that have given this former almost exclusively agricultural region a reputation as of one of Russia’s innovation centers.
Anton Voropaev, noting the good facilities and work zones at the Astral IT park, said the spin-offs of the company where perhaps the most mature of the projects that he had personally observed in Kaluga.
"Obviously, IT projects in Kaluga are gaining momentum, and the tendency of development in the area of biotechnology is clearly visible. We had time to hear and see 12 projects in Kaluga, and all of them are invited to the StartUp Village in Skolkovo. I want to say that we were not trying to seek a winner – everybody is welcome. Our goal is to introduce startups to each other, so that regional start-ups could cooperate and complement what is already on the market, rather than trying to win the market completely from scratch and exhausting themselves in competition with their peers. The Russian StartUp Tour is more of an educational event that aims to provide opinions and advice to startups about their projects," Voropaev said.
Denis Gusev, ASI, on the stage at the Kaluga IT park
About a quarter of the audience in Kaluga was made up of those who had already opened a start-up business, while the others came to listen and gain wisdom. Of all of the ideas presented, Voropaev was most impressed by Alexei Kuhtinov’s project, Virtual Cryptoservice, which creates a secure information environment certified by a center for the storage and use (after the two-stage authentication) of its members’ electronic signatures. This project creates a digital signature in the cloud. "Reaching out" (of course, using modern security for the digital signature) from the cloud can connect multiple signatures required for to complete one final document.
Among other equally promising IT projects in Kaluga: Estorico (online tool for creating a timeline); Avtob.us, a traffic management system; Parara.ru, a system of online personality tests that will help establish a relationship and psychological check for the compatibility of couples for marriage, and other interesting ideas. A team of students at the Bauman University of Kaluga presented a project to create a source of renewable energy using a hydroelectric dam for slow-flowing rivers.
Kaluga Entrpreneur Peter Tot presents his project, Pararu.ru