U.S. tech giant Intel on Tuesday announced it had become a partner to the Russian Startup Tour and the summer's Startup Village, two of Russia’s most important events to encourage the growth of new high-tech companies.
Intel's Valery Cherepennikov speaking in Nizhny Novgorod, stop three of the Russian Startup Tour. Photo: sk.ru
Intel is already a partner of the Skolkovo Foundation, conducting research and development at the Innovations Center and mentoring Skolkovo residents, among other things.
But with Tuesday’s announcement by Valery Cherepennikov, Intel’s general director for research and development in Russia, the partnership takes on an added dimension – a move the company sees as its duty in times of economic crisis.
“Our cooperation with Skolkovo already carries a quite traditional character,” Cherepennikov said in Nizhny Novgorod, where the Russian Startup Tour was on its third stop of a 12-stage journey.
“We’re very impressed by the Startup Village, which we participated in last year. And, it seems to me, from the point of view of technological entrepreneurship, now is an excellent time [to encourage it]: The flip side of any crisis is opportunity, and one of the best opportunities that we see in the Russian market is in technological entrepreneurship.”
Nizhny Novgorod is a key IT hub, and that’s no exception for Intel, which has offices there as well as in St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk and Moscow. During the Startup Tour stage, Intel experts are to hold mentoring sessions and master-classes, and also act as jury members for the pitch sessions on day two.
After addressing dozens of local budding entrepreneurs, Cherepennikov told sk.ru: “We are trying to pull the startups that are attending here to the big startup conferences like Startup Village.”
“I believe this is really important from the point of view of developing infrastructure. In Moscow, the infrastructure is much more advanced than in the regions. That’s why the smart money is in the capital. And it’s very important that the people who have the most potential from our point of view, get to interact with that smart money – get noticed in that ecosystem,” he added.
“This is why the Startup Tour and the Startup Village are so crucial. They help rookie businesspeople out with this tricky game.”
Other than general support of innovations in the Russian regions, the goal of the Startup Tour is to find the best projects and bring them to Moscow to compete in the pitch sessions at the Startup Village and vie for possible grants, investment and residency.
Vasily Belov, Skolkovo’s senior vice president for innovations, noted that although big events are not the only areas of cooperation between Skolkovo and Intel, they do represent an area of “mutual interest and long-term plans that are not subject to volatile fluctuations.”