• Update available for Startup Village

    Improvements in this version of Startup Village: Record crowds, new setting, creative catering. Like the leading smartphone apps, Startup Village is constantly evolving. The third edition of Russia and Eastern Europe’s biggest startup event is no...

    26 May, 13:03 Nowak David
  • ‘Keep Calm and Make Robots’

    In business, they say, failure is the first step on the ladder to success. If that’s true, Daria Kaftan is headed in the right direction. Daria Kaftan, the 24-year-old rock-chick innovator and familiar face in the Skolkovo ecosystem. Photo: sk.ru...

    06 May, 16:49 Nowak David
  • Russian startups mature, but need more tenacity - Pekka Viljakainen

    Russia’s high-tech startups are getting better by the year, but innovators need to be more persistent to commercialize their solutions, said Pekka Viljakainen, advisor to Skolkovo president Victor Vekselberg and an ever-present in three editions of the...

    29 April, 13:03 Nowak David
  • Startup Tour makes final stop of 2015 in Krasnogorsk

    KRASNOGORSK, Moscow Region - Russia's biggest innovations roadshow wound up last week in the Moscow region town of Krasnogorsk. Moscow Region Government headquarters in Krasnogorsk. Photo: sk.ru The Startup Tour, whose goal is to stimulate high...

    29 April, 11:54 Nowak David
  • Belarus enthusiastic for Startup Tour – Vasily Belov

    The energy of the participants at the Minsk stage of the Startup Tour is something to behold, said Skolkovo’s senior vice president for innovations Vasily Belov. Vasily Belov in Minsk. Photo: sk.ru The tour is calling in on Belarus this week...

    15 April, 9:23 Nowak David
  • Second foreign assignment for the Startup Tour to kick off in Minsk

    The second foray outside the confines of Russia begins Tuesday for the Startup Tour, which visits the Belarusian capital of Minsk in its quest to uncover and develop the top startups in the CIS. The National Library of Belarus in Minsk, venue for the...

    13 April, 11:06 Nowak David
  • Krasnoyarsk startups told to dumb down their pitches

    The Krasnoyarsk stage of the 2015 Startup Tour ended with two local companies invited to the Startup Village pitch sessions in Moscow and a message for all participating innovators: Dumb down your pitches! The city in eastern Siberia was the ninth stop on...

    07 April, 15:05 Nowak David
  • Skolkovo opens Far East branch in Vladivostok

    Skolkovo Foundation chairman Andrei Burenin on Thursday announced the opening of a Skolkovo branch in Vladivostok to accelerate the commercialization of new technology from all over Russia’s Far East. Speaking at the eighth stage of the Russian Startup...

    02 April, 10:40 Nowak David
  • Dvorkovich: Startup Tour 2016 to include Armenia, Kyrgyzstan

    The expansion of Russia’s biggest innovations roadshow shows no signs of abating, with Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich saying the Startup Tour is to take in Armenia and Kyrgyzstan next year. The stops on this year's Startup Tour. ...

    01 April, 16:31 Nowak David
  • Catalyzing angel investment in Almaty

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan - It’s springtime in downtown Almaty, though winter is blowing its last frigid gusts off the snowy peaks of the Zailiyskiy Alatau mountain range and around the city's skyscrapers and Soviet-built housing blocks. At a downtown...

    30 March, 12:05 Nowak David
  • St. Petersburg delights with cow pregnancy tests and ‘Internet of Vegetables’

    A wind generator, a cow pregnancy test and the curiously titled Internet of Vegetables were among the victors in the pitch contest at the seventh stage of the Startup Tour, which wrapped up in St. Petersburg this week. The winners of the pitch sessions...

    27 March, 9:57 Nowak David
  • Biomed Cluster to take on 30-40 agriculture projects – Kirill Kaem

    Skolkovo’s Biomed Cluster is expecting around 30 to 40 agriculture-based startups to become residents in the coming months as the Russian government moves to encourage high-tech innovation in food production. Skolkovo VP Kirill Kaem, the executive...

    26 March, 15:10 Nowak David
  • A glimpse inside Kazakh innovation

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan – Anar Akbarli typifies the new generation of innovators from Central Asia: Progressive, tenacious, and very, very smart. His is a generation tasked with providing a new string to the Kazakh economy’s bow, and if his product pitch...

    26 March, 10:25 Nowak David
  • 10 simple rules for international success

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan – As part of the March 19-20 Startup Tour in Kazakhstan’s second city, Skolkovo’s startup guru Pekka Viljakainen gave a master-class on initiating a high-tech business. During the Finn’s 35-minute presentation at the...

    24 March, 9:54 Nowak David
  • Startup Tour opens door to Skolkovo ecosystem in Kazakhstan

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan - The Kazakh stage of the Startup Tour concluded on Friday with several innovations winning a place at the Startup Village in June and, perhaps more significantly, the foundations put in place for of a new era of high-tech cooperation between...

    20 March, 17:17 Nowak David
  • Cattle-farming innovations triumph at Kazakh pitch sessions

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan - The top two biomedical innovations at the Startup Tour in Almaty this week seek to modernize cattle rearing in Kazakhstan, with promising knock-on effects for the meat and dairy industries. Ruslan Altaev of Skolkovo's Biomed Cluster...

    20 March, 16:35 Nowak David
  • A Russian-Kazakh pipeline for oil and gas cooperation

    Access to clients such as Gazprom and Rosneft is on offer for Kazakh startups that join the Skolkovo ecosystem, said the executive director of the foundation’s Energy Cluster, Nikolai Grachev, at a roundtable in Almaty on Thursday. Nikolai Grachev...

    19 March, 11:43 Nowak David
  • ‘A wonderful day to start a business’

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan - Pekka Viljakainen is sick to the back teeth of hearing people blame the lack of startups on the financial crisis. A national Kazakh television network interviews Pekka Viljakainen. Photo: sk.ru The Finnish tech entrepreneur...

    19 March, 9:14 Nowak David
  • Top Kazakh minister opens Startup Tour in Almaty

    ALMATY - Kazakhstan’s Minister for Investment and Development Asset Issekeshev raised the curtain Thursday on the sixth leg of the Russian Startup Tour - and first to take place abroad – with a call to transform Almaty into a major innovations hub...

    19 March, 8:29 Nowak David
  • The day the Russian Startup Tour ceases to be ‘Russian’

    A key message that Skolkovo transmits its startups is the need to expand into new territories. Now it is leading by example: This week, Russia’s biggest innovations roadshow ventures abroad for the first time in its five-year history. Almaty - the...

    13 March, 14:02 Nowak David
  • From the Urals with innovations: Four teams make Startup Village 2015

    The fifth stage of the Russian Startup Tour culminated this week with four teams from Yekaterinburg winning an invitation to the Startup Village in Moscow. The finalists in Yekaterinburg. Photo: sk.ru The capital of the Ural Mountains region was...

    13 March, 10:25 Nowak David
  • Russian Startup Tour swings into Yekaterinburg

    Thirty-seven companies will battle for a place at Startup Village this week, when the Russian Startup Tour makes its fifth stop on the 12-stage trip in Yekaterinburg. The Yekaterinburg Expo Center. Photo: www.ekaterinburgexpo.ru Russia’s fourth...

    10 March, 16:46 Nowak David
  • Startup Tour: Kazan yields DNA analysis, river cleansing technology

    The Russian Startup Tour unearthed some innovative gems in Kazan over the last two days, with six startups invited to Startup Village in Moscow and four million rubles in investments handed out. At the pitch competition in the Kazan IT park on Tuesday and...

    04 March, 19:23 Nowak David
  • Application process opens for Startup Village 2015

    The Skolkovo Foundation began accepting applications Monday for the pitch sessions at Startup Village, Eastern Europe’s biggest innovations conference, at the Innovation Center on June 2-3. Last year's Startup Village attracted around 10,000...

    02 March, 14:35 Nowak David
  • Russian Startup Tour reaches Kazan

    More than 140 startups registered an interest to take part in the Kazan stage of the Russian Startup Tour, the fourth stop on the innovations roadshow that runs Tuesday and Wednesday in the Tatarstan capital. The Kazan Kremlin. Photo: flickr The...

    02 March, 10:43 Nowak David