Startup Tour leaves the Far East, but Skolkovo stays behind

The Startup Tour may have left Russia’s Far East, but the Skolkovo Foundation remains in the region for the foreseeable future with the Vladivostok branch beginning its official operations on Monday.

The winners in Vladivostok. Photo: sk.ru

The Pacific coastal city was the ninth stage of the 12-city tour, Russia’s biggest innovations roadshow designed to encourage entrepreneurship and venture capitalism across the region.

“The Startup Tour is the first step in the creation of a successful innovation ecosystem,” said Skolkovo Foundation chairman Andrei Burenin, wrapping up the two-day visit on Friday.

“Literally yesterday the Justice Ministry registered the creation of the Skolkovo Foundation branch in Vladivostok, and from Monday it begins its operations,” he added.

The branch is currently working out of office space in Vladivostok but will soon up sticks and move to the Far Eastern Federal University.

First Deputy Governor of the neighboring Khabarovsk region Nikolai Brusnikin was optimistic of the role Skolkovo will play in the local economy.

“We believe that the strategic role of the Far East will become very apparent, especially in today’s economic climate. It’s a unique territory, where it’s possible to turn ideas into reality and start businesses,” Brusnikin said.

One function of the Startup Tour is to uncover innovations from local startups and invite them to participate in Startup Village at the Skolkovo Innovation Center in Moscow.

This is achieved through pitch sessions, where local teams battle it out in five categories to win entry to the Moscow finals on June 2-3.

In Vladivostok, the products ranged from new methods of processing fish waste to software for controlling underwater apparatus.

Petr Nikiforov’s device to treat congenital clubfoot in young children won first place in the ‘innovations for kids’ track; while Marat Grishkov did the same for the industrial technology category with his fish waste processing innovation.

A mobile orientation system won Sergei Protopopov first place in the IT track, and Alexander Ulyanov finished top in the biomed division for his visualization device for endotracheal tubes. First place in the energy-efficient category went to Sergey Leontyev for his MBGU-140 light hydraulic drilling rig.

All but Nikiforov and Protopopov won invites to Moscow, where there is no innovation for kids category.

 The Startup Tour has already visited Rostov-on-Don, Tomsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Almaty and St. Petersburg. This week it rolls into the Siberian center of Krasnoyarsk before its second foray outside Russia, to Minsk, and then Ufa and the Moscow Region.

A table showing the top places in each category. Those in bold are invited to the Startup Village; the asterisked projects are given a 1 million ruble investment from the Fund for Developing Small High-Tech Enterprises.