On May 27-28, 2013 the first international conference of startup companies and investors “Startup Village” took place at Hypercube of the Skolkovo Innovation Center. During two days more than 5,000 people participated in the conference – representatives of startups from 48 countries: Russia, CIS countries, USA, Sweden, Norway, Italy and other countries, more than 600 investors, representatives of venture funds, development institutions and authority bodies. At the opening of the event on May 27 Andrei Fursenko read the welcome message from the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. On the second day the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitri Medvedev visited the conference. During his visit the head of the government inspected sectors of biomedicine and renewable energy, the pitch-presentations training for the Startup Village competition finalists, and also talked to the representatives of the companies, who had presented their projects. Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology also took active participation in the event and acted as one of the main partners of the Startup Village.
At the seminar Skoltech Innovation, Education, Research
On May 27 Skoltech programme included participation in plenary session “Building an Entrepreneurial Community. What can Russia learn from experience of foreign startup communities?” Ilya Dubinskiy, Director of the Skoltech Entrepreneurship and Innovations Center, highlighted the role of universities in the development of the entrepreneurship communities.
On the same day “Agreement on cooperation between the Agency of strategic initiatives on promotion of new projects and Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology” was signed. On behalf of Skoltech the agreement was signed by the Vice President for development Alexey Sitnikov, while on the behalf of ASI – by the “Young Professionals” Direction Director Dmitri Peskov. The agreement envisages cooperation for implementation of the best practices for training of highly qualified human resources and provision of new quality of higher professional education in Russia.
Later a seminar “New Engineering Education: CDIO in Russia” took place, during which implementation of CDIO principles (http://www.cdio.org/) at Russian instituions for higher education was discussed. In the evening of the same day Mikhail Myagkov, Skoltech Vice President for academic affairs held a presentation about the institute. He explained what differed this educational institution from other leading technical higher educational institutions and what studying here gave to young people who intended to engage themselves in entrepreneurship for high technological innovations.
“Studying at Skoltech combines three parts, necessary for fostering an innovator in the sphere of high tech: qualitative basic education, research activities and live innovation process”, said Mikhail Myagkov in his speech. “The working principles of science, innovation and education centers and Skoltech Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center are based on these three parts.”
On the evening of May 27, during the partner award ceremony Skoltech awarded “Nettle” for the project of a virtual reality screen Nettlebox – the prize was a trip for two representatives of the company to the Demo Day event organized by Moscow Institute of Technology, which would take place on September 7 in the frameworks of the programme Global Founders Skills Accelerator (GFSA) (http://ecenter.mit.edu/fsa).
Ilya Dubinskiy (second on the left) tells about the role of education in the innovation development. [photo]
On May 28, the second day of the conference, Skoltech together with MIT conducted a seminar “Innovations: from university laboratory to own company” dedicated to entrepreneurship and innovations in technical higher education institutions.
Leading world experts in the sphere of entrepreneurship and innovations shared their experience in entrepreneurial development within the university environment. One of the guests was a world-renowned expert in the sphere of tech startup creation, leader of the MIT Center of Technological Innovations “Despande”, professor Charles Kuni. Speakers also included MIT project director/Skoltech Initiative in entrepreneurship and innovations Jose Estabil, professor of the MIT material study department Eugene Fitzgerald, Skoltech professor Alessandro Golkar. The meeting was moderated by the director of Entrepreneurship and Innovations Center (Skoltech) Ilya Dubinskiy.
According to the leader of the MIT Center of Technological Innovations “Despande” Charles Kuni, the most important thing is to make the university environment understand that it is possible to be simultaneously engaged in fundamental research, learning and work on projects directed at solutions for practical problems, relevant for society.
“Leading higher educational institutions have a huge influence on the economy. We have a unique possibility to raise students with the understanding that by creating innovations they can solve serious problems, relevant for the society. And if we manage to teach this to a sufficient number of people, to each student at the university, we will manage to change the future.” Charles Kuni.
Future innovators present at the seminar had the possibility to ask the experts questions they were interested in, and talk to innovations specialists in an informal environment after the seminar.
The startup Village conference has finalized. The scale of the event, the enthusiasm and interest of the participants indicate that the Russian startup market will be developing rapidly. Skoltech will promote this development by fostering innovation leaders and spreading innovative culture in Russia’s leading higher educational institutions.