In the beginning of June in Skolkovo, the Startup Village conference, gathering 20,000 people from 27 countries, came to an end. Participants included representatives from the government, the top officials in major companies, researchers, and experts. The conference’s opening ceremonies were held with participation from the deputy prime minister of the Russian Federation, Arkadiy Dvorkovich. One of the speakers and mentors at the event was Evgeniy Kasperskiy.
Each year, the contest for innovative projects is an important part of the Startup Village conference. This year, 976 applicants entered. On the final stage 278 teams competed, including 49 project finalists of Russian Startup Tour (RST).
One of the semifinalists of this contest was assistant professor of the SUSU department of theoretical bases of electrical equipment, Yevgeniy Osintsev. He is the author of a project for technological lines for the production of high-quality seeds. He presented his startup in the category “Deep processing of raw agro materials and waste”.
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The team from SUSU at this conference, besides Egveniy, included two more SUSU staff, head of the SUSU department of applied biotechnology, doctor of agricultural sciences, Maksim Rebezov, and professor of the department of theoretical bases of electromechanics, Darya Osintseva.
Evgeniy’s team also entered the finals of a special contest program, “Start”, from the Fund for Promotion of Innovations. The researchers received 2,000,000 rubles for the development of their project.
The presentation of the Chelyabinsk team was judged by the 6 members of the jury, which included deputy director of innovative work of the A.N. Bach Institute of Biochemistry Russian Academy of Sciences, Yelchin Sadykhov, executive director of the administrative department of the Regional Center of Biotechnology Engineering of the Republic of Tatarstan, Roman Titov, general director of the Institute of Agroecology and Biotechnology, LLC., Sergey Sinkaryev. In interactions between members of the jury with participants, special attention was paid to questions about the current stage of development, who the project will be of interest to, and also about the practical results the teams have already managed to achieve at this time.
“I was amazed at how much attention even technical universities are giving to the research of biotechnology in the agricultural sector today. I’d like to mention the level of organization of the event as a whole, and also express my gratitude to our mentor Oleg Ivanov, who worked with us a lot in preparing the project for presentation and gave us a lot of valuable advice,” shared Evgeniy.
The researcher notes that at this event he was able not only to present his project, but to make helpful contacts. Ahead, according to Evgeniy, there is a lot of work to organize the business and realization of the project. At the end of the conference, his team was invited to present their startup again at a few more events.
StartupVillage 2016 is the fourth international conference for technological businesses, whose main goal is for the founders of startups to communicate with successful businesses, major manufacturers, investors, and officials. The project is organized by the Skolkovo fund together with the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech).