V Russian Innovative Convention

«Russian Innovation Convention 2012», со-organized by the Skolkovo’s Technopark, brought more than thousand participants and tens of high profile speakers from the sphere of innovation

Young people are the main audience of the Convention

The key audience of the “Russian Innovation Convention 2012” are young people, looking for self-fulfillment in science and high-tech economy, for those of them, who enthusiastically consider an opportunity to set their own start-up, while some of them have already done so.

It was them, who were addressed by the minister of science and education Dmitry Livanov, or by the communications minister Nikolay Nikiforov, as well as by the RVC’s general director Igor Agamirzyan, or heads of noticeable venture funds, or by the Seed Forum co-founder Steinar Korsmo. MIT mentors and Cambridge Innovation Center leader also spoke for them.

The Skolkovo Foundation was represented by the Skolkovo Foundation presidential adviser Pekka Villjakainen, by the technopark’s general director Sergey Kurilov. And on the backstage of the forum among other projects one could see and even play with already famous (and invested by private funds) Displair.

The Convention program included sessions and seminars on such issues as globalization of innovations, perspectives of fundamental science, cooperation between Russian development institutions, new methods for R&D integration into business, raising investor capital and if crowd-funding can be an alternative and many other crucial for young innovators subjects. The Seed Forum, one of the strongest networks for start-uppers worldwide, session also took place during the event.

For winners the Technopark offers full package of services for free

The Skolkovo Technopark acted as one of organizers of the event, and Sergey Kurilov handed in prizes for the winners in several nominations. On the forum’s backstage he told Sk.ru that the decision on who should win was taken by him quite spontaneously. Meanwhile the technopark offered its own valuable prize for the winners, which is a month of free staying in the technopark, which includes all services it renders to Skolkovo residents.

“This month should be enough for them to “warm up”, get experience, and, which is most important, all required contacts in the center (given that startups are regional)”, Sergey Kurilov said.

“Most important is that we see that Skolkovo is being visited more and more often by young innovators, and this is the real magic of the place”.

Let the winner talk

Among the winners in nominations, and they were five of them was the Skolkovo resident RealSpeaker Labwith its project of voice recognition, based on sound and video, which has already brought the com[any several prestigious awards in 2012.

The RealSpeaker was named as “The Best IT Project”. The leader of this Skolkovo resident, Kazan-based Real Speaker Lab Viktor Osetrov told Sk.ru that this year the company managed to prove the concept, idea that video can be an additional tool for more precise voice recognition. “And one more important achievement of the year is that we have become Skolkovo’s resident, it has inspired confidence into the RealSpeaker team”, Osetrov said.

«It’s a very important moment when you see that people believed in you. But our main reward are the users. And we see it as a nearest goal to create a user friendly product». He said it was good to draw a lucky line like this at the end of the year, it shows positive results and points out that the company is on the right track.

And another Skolkovo resident, which won the prize, is "Kuzbass Sorbents" of the Cleantech cluster, which won the "Best Innovation Project" nomination.

About Konvent

Russian Innovation Convention (RIC) – is an annual Russian professionally oriented event, which gathers about 1000 young authors of innovative projects.

From 2008 to 2011 there were many renowned guests of honor at the Convention, such as: the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the founder of the «Virgin» company Richard Branson; «Apple» evangelist Guy Kawasaki; Mitio Kaku - American scientist; researcher, author of the theory of “The Creative Class” - Richard Florida; Facebook’s veteran Kevin Colleran; legendary venture investor Bill Tai; a businessman, co-founder of «Apple» - Steve Wozniak, programmer and entrepreneur Paul Buchheit, partner at the seed-stage investment firm “Y Combinator”- Harzh Taggar.

On December 18, 2012 The V Russian Innovation Convention for the first time will be held in the innovation city “Skolkovo”, on the site of the first residence for partners and participants of the “Skolkovo” - Hypercube - the symbol of the high-tech future of Russia.

V Russian Innovation Convention will bring together famous venture investors, talented young startupers and entrepreneurs, the leaders of the Russian institutes for development, heads of Russian and foreign companies, members of the Convention of the past years, who have successfully commercialized their projects.

The Program of the Russian Innovation Convention – is a symbiosis of different formats and opportunities, provided to young innovators to present their projects, to gain practical knowledge, skills and experience, inspiring ideas for future projects, to search for partners and to form creative teams to implement their plans.

In addition to plenary sessions and sections, where legislative, infrastructural, financial and organizational capacity for innovations will be discussed for all practical purposes, on the day of the Convention the participants will enter into the global game– City Game, where they can choose and vote for the best designs, create and develop new trends expressed in speeches, in informal discussions on the sidelines and at the presentations. At the same time, International Investment Meeting “Seed Forum Moscow” will be held in the framework of the Convention, which is a professional international network of 5000 experts in various fields with successful experience in the creation and development of high-tech companies.

Startup Alley will be functioning at the site of the Hypercube: the participants will be able to present their projects, as well as representation and stands of leading technology companies.

The culmination of the Convention will become the results of the contest of innovative projects and the announcement of the winners of the Zvorykin National Award for Innovations. Perhaps it is the Award winners will determine the technology trends of 2012 and 2013.