Anna Nikina, Head of partnerships development with the Skolkovo Technopark talks about practical applications of the international associations’, science and technological parks’ for the Skolkovo residents
A. Nikina:
One of the missions of the Skolkovo eco-system is to help our young entrepreneurs, Skolkovo residents to form part of the global business community, to get an access to wider entrepreneurship resources, contacts and partnership opportunities all over the world.
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The fact that Skolkovo Technopark has joined several key world associations by itself indicates that the level of Skolkovo development is recognized on international scale. Each of the associations, technoparks and science parks, whatever part of the world they are, cares a lot about their membership quality issue. And we’ve joined five leading associations, and have become partners with several science and technological parks, so it’s a high recognition our quality.This work continues, and last week we signed agreements with the Finnish Technological University in Lappenranta, as well as the NEST, a US business accelerator in the City of New-York. The network of contacts and business ties of the key associations we work with practically covers the entire world.The calendar of events of these organizations includes trainings, seminars and conferences. These are unique in terms of getting new knowledge and contacts events. Most of them are available only for members of associations, and we open doors for our residents to participate in all of them. Preparation, organization of such events is a very labor-consuming process and requires sometimes not only flexibility and diplomacy, but creativeness as well.
Let me tell just few examples. Last year The Asian Science Parks Association invited us for a business trip to Malaysia. The Skolkovo Foundation residents, who went there, found out about innovation activities of this country, and, which not less important, met and talked to their potential partners and clients in this region. And all those meetings and events were worked out and prepared well in advance. Participation in such events is definitely one of privileges, which we offer to young developing companies. In this case The Asian Science Parks Association took care of accommodation and participation in all business programs. Therefore, cooperation with business associations is also a good opportunity of financially affordable (which is, surely, very important for startups) events.Last year our residents also took part in a business trip to China.
Several companies, highly interested in work on Chinese market participated in it. And I was glad to support them, using a network of my business contacts in this country, which was formed with the help of the mentioned association. And as a result our partnership helped to organize business meetings and visits, so our residents were quite satisfied with efficiency and productivity of that trip.
It’s worth mentioning that cooperation with international associations considerably widens our opportunities to render consulting services, as development institutions, industry leaders as well as leading technoparks also form part of these associations. Familiarity with them, access to this community is an essential tool for the development of startups’ potential. With a similar and already well-established pattern, with the help of our partners from associations and technoparks, we can develop partnerships in almost every corner of the world to help our residents open access to world markets.Feedback is one more important moment. The Skolkovo Foundation is also interested in the world of its innovative projects. We are interested in more often visits of international companies, foreign entrepreneurs and perspective foreign startups. International associations can render an invaluable support in this issue as well. For example, in 2014 we plan to organize a business conference of Asian, particularly Korean and Chinese companies, here at Skolkovo.The Technopark’s membership in international associations opens wide opportunities for further cooperation development with leading world science parks. And it’s an important step in a chain-like process of building of global partnership. Technoparks allow us to solve a number of practical issues, from cooperation with world-recognized mentors, including consultations on commercialization issues, to such a “basic” (but not less important) issue as help in accommodation in a country of stay.
The Skolkovo companies, thanks to our connections, now already have an opportunity to use the partnership technopark as a venue for a temporary and affordable accommodation, like a business hotel, in such countries as Germany, Finland, USA and South Korea. To put it simple, one can always come to visit, stay and look around there in a format of temporary accommodation. It’s an interesting and quite practical tool in the hands of our residents. To my mind, there aren’t too many organizations in Russia, who can provide such wide and practical opportunities, and I think it may safely be said that our Technopark became an absolute leader in the business of development of international partnership network in the interests of startups.