«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 Technoparkacted 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 Lab with 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.