The Russian StartUp Tour event held in Tyumen took place March 20th. Maria Radion, CEO of the Tyumen Technopark "West-Siberian Innovation Center" business incubator comments on the results and significance of this event for the innovation community in Tyumen
Maria, what do you see as the principal value of Russian StartUp Tour for Tyumen?
M. Radion: For us and for the whole community of innovators in Tyumen, this tour was a very important event. First, from the point of view of information. Our innovators met with state development institutions and learned first-hand about the support they offer to budding entrepreneurs in technology. In our region, many do not even know what programs, contests and other activities development institutions have for startups. And here they did not just learn about opportunities, but also were able to communicate personally with representatives and ask questions.
Second, startups received huge support in the form of consultations. In my view, the consultation round, conducted by representatives of the Skolkovo Foundation, Skoltech University, and RVC was simply great. Those running Startups heard professional opinions about their projects and got hints on how best to develop further, and also on how to approach investors. And another very important element for us is the development of the communications infrastructure for our business incubator. The fact is that we already have some achievements by organizations such as the Bortnik Fund, for example, but here we see all the institutions at once. And we hope that we will more actively develop cooperation with the Skolkovo Foundation.
How many Tyumen startups were reviewed? Please tell us a little more about the Tyumen startups that participated in the tour.
In total experts from development institutions were presented with eleven regional startups for review. Eight of them received letters of thanks and an invitation to participate in the Startup Village. Industry-specific projects were quite varied: projects were presented in the fields of information technology, medicine and geoinformation. We have tried to diversify projects to widen the range of choices. The West Siberian Innovation Center has no clear industry specialization and we consider all viable projects.
Tyumen projects that were presented by experts from public development institutions: