Startup Tour puts Ufa on the map of Russian innovation

The Startup Tour completed its penultimate stop this week on its three-month journey around Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, putting the central city of Ufa firmly on the map of Russian innovation.

ThUfa's State Petrochemical Technological University. Photo: rusoil.net

The purpose of the tour is to create pockets of innovation and entrepreneurship around the CIS to accelerate economic transformation. The best startups uncovered along the way are invited to Startup Village in Moscow on June 2-3 to compete for investment and possible Skolkovo residency.

Ufa, the capital city of the oil-rich Bashkortostan republic with a population of 1 million, was the 11^th stop on the tour, which wraps up in the Moscow region on April 30.

“Ufa will become an important point on the innovation map of Russia,” said Ramil Bakhtizina, the rector of the Ufa State Petrochemical Technological University, which hosted the two-day event.

“It’s especially pleasing that our university is taking part in the tour. We have very close ties with Skolkovo – our Common Use Center is accredited at the Skolkovo Technopark,” he added.

Dmitry Sharonov, the deputy prime minister of the republic, called the Startup Tour “a wonderful opportunity to share the innovation mechanisms of our republic in the spheres of petrochemicals, biomedicine, and radio electronics.”

More than 400 participants from Ufa and surrounding regions of Udmurtia, Kirov, Orenburg and Perm were present for the event.

The winners of the pitch contests in Ufa. Photo: rusoil.net

The first day of the tour, as usual, was devoted to the educational side – training sessions, round tables and panel discussions, while day two featured the pitch sessions, where local innovators symbolically persuade a panel to invest in their product. The top companies, which compete in five categories – IT, biomedicine, industrial technology, innovations for kids and energy-efficient technology – win berths in the pitch sessions at Startup Village.

The top place in the IT section went to Egor Neretin for his ‘Hipdriver’ project; while Denis Kosmylin won the efficient energy track with shockwave technology for cleansing diesel fuel of sulfur. In the biomed category, Marat Kalanov impressed with his drainage system for lacrimal surgery, and Alexei Lachinov claimed first place in the industrial track with his high-tech fingerprint system and Roman Sinelnikov did the same in the children’s track with an innovation named Oh!MyBaby.

Kosmylin, Kalonov and Lachinov won places at Startup Village along with Iskander Kazbulatov, whose innovation in seismology claimed the special prize in the IT track. Those four also won 1 million ruble investments from the Fund for Assisting Small Innovative Companies.

A complete rundown of the top innovators is presented below.

The Startup Tour next rolls into Krasnogorsk on the fringes of Moscow, where on April 29-30 it makes its final stop ahead of Startup Village.