The future of the Skolkovo Foundation looks “very positive,” its president Victor Vekselberg told a meeting of the foundation’s council on Thursday.
Skolkovo Foundation president Victor Vekselberg addressing the council meeting on Thursday. Photo: Sk.ru.
“Everything looks stable and promising, in particular for our project,” Vekselberg, who co-chairs the foundation council, told its members, who included co-chair Craig Barrett, the retired CEO of Intel Corporation, taking part via a conference link.
The foundation’s president said the International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation (IASP) conference, co-hosted by Skolkovo this week, had been “a significant success.”
The conference, which was being held in Russia for the first time in its 33-year history, attracted a record number of participants.
The next major event coming up at Skolkovo is Open Innovations, the biggest innovations forum in Russia, which will be hosted by the brand new Skolkovo Technopark at the end of October, Vekselberg reminded council members.
Igor Drozdov, chairman of the board of the Skolkovo Foundation, outlined the foundation’s development plan for 2017 through 2020, which includes increasing its activities and presence in Russia’s regions.
Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett took part via video link. Photo: Sk.ru.
Council members heard a proposal from Vasily Belov, the foundation’s senior vice president for innovations, to found Skolkovo Venture Investments, a limited liability company that would be a subsidiary of the foundation. The company would focus on attracting private investments to Skolkovo projects at a time when private funding is scarce, said Belov. It would invest primarily in Skolkovo startups, but not exclusively, said Belov, stressing that it was important for the planned VC to have access to foreign markets.
Kirill Bulatov, vice president and head of the Skolkovo grants service, proposed expanding the foundation’s system of micro-grants, which was launched in August 2015 and enables startups to obtain grants of up to 1.5 million rubles ($23,000) to cover expenses relating to prototyping, intellectual property (IP) protection and patenting, and taking part in conferences and exhibitions. Bulatov’s proposal was passed, and micro-grants will now also cover three more areas of expense: renting lab equipment and purchasing software licenses, buying component parts for assembling a prototype, and the experimental implementation of developed products.
Anton Pushkov, managing partner of the foundation’s IP centre, presented the foundation’s plan to streamline the process of helping Skolkovo’s startups to obtain certification for their products. Certification both in Russia and abroad is a service required by many of the foundation’s 1,500 startups, he said, but since they are active in different industries, it would be difficult for an internal company to meet all their requirements. The foundation therefore plans to set up an online service that connects top certification service providers who meet strict criteria with Skolkovo startups. The online centre will carry out extensive security and financial checks on various service providers, and then collect feedback from the startups who use them to create an up-to-date database of recommended certification providers, he said.
The council next meets in December.