Belgorod was well prepared for the Russian Startup Tour and was looking forward to this event, having selected 45 of its most interesting startups, 12 of which were presented by the experts of state development institutes.
Belgorod dwellers were fully prepared for the Russian Startup Tour which took place in the city on April 25, 2013. They carefully selected the most promising regional startup companies, while the administration’s youth department, in cooperation with the Ministry of Economic Development, actively supported them. Administration allocated a wonderful spacious hall for conducting the meeting with the Startup Tour experts. Via a special youth website Молодчины.рф, the city and region kept actively calling for young talents. Everything was ready for the big celebration. Unfortunately it was compelled to start with a minute of silence to honour the victims of the tragedy that broke out in this quiet and cozy place on April 22.
Based on the results of the event, local mass media marked that for the Belgorod startup community the event was, of course, of an unprecedented character, both in terms of the participation scale of local innovative entrepreneurs and the level of attention towards them on behalf of Moscow experts and mentors. For the Belgorod region the Startup Tour had become a number one event in the innovative life since the beginning of 2013. Region administration website and key city portals gave priority to news about it.
The following were among the projects analyzed in Belgorod by the experts of development institutes: Co-working Center “PlatForma” by Maria Galitskaya;
The event’s opening was attended by the Head of Mass Communications and Public Relations Management of the regional Department of Internal and Personnel Policy Igor Lazarev, who marked:
Participation in this project gives possibility to fulfill one’s ideas, thoughts, receive certain experience. Naturally, we would like to get as many Belgorod regional projects in the federal stage as possible.
I. Lazarev also said that higher education institutions of Belgorod region actively responded to establishment of small innovation companies and that the region is one of Russia’s leaders, where a big number of grants and subsidies are distributed for establishment and support of small innovation companies.