Krasnoyarsk has come to be the final stop in the Siberian stretch of the Russian Startup Tour whose itinerary covered 27 cities of the country. The Russian Startup Tour team toured several Siberian cities, including Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Kemerovo. And in all of these the Tour enjoyed a magnificent success and much attention on the part of the local authorities, Siberia media sources and the research community, but most importantly, on the part of actual startuppers, who submitted interesting innovation project for consideration by both the panel and the investors. V iktor Vekselberg making a speech at the Krasnoyarsk forum The Krasnoyarsk event was the most representative one in the government development institutes team’s series of Siberian meetings. It coincided with and was therefore held on the platform of the 11 th Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum, which is an annual event for this city located on the banks of the powerful and stunning Yenisei river and is ranked the second most important economic forum in Russia after the country’s biggest St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Speaking at the opening ceremony Minister of Communications and Mass Media of Russia Nikolay Nikiforov stressed the Tour’s high profile, saying this: “Russian Startup Tour has become the leading instrument of innovation ecosystem development”. The opening of the fourth day in the Siberian stretch of the road show was also attended by Russian Deputy Minister of Finance Andrei Ivanov, Russian Deputy Minister of Energy Alexei Teksler, Deputy Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Region Andrei Gnezdilov, Skolkovo Foundation president Viktor Vekselberg, CEO of RVC Igor Agamirzian, General Director of the Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises in Science and Technology Sergey Polyakov and Advisor to the President of the Skolkovo Foundation Pekka Viljakainen. In his address to the Russian Startup Tour team Skolkovo Foundation President wished them to maintain “reasonable assertiveness” all through the event’s business agenda. “Do not be afraid to proclaim your talents. All your initiatives will surely meet with support, in one form or form or another”, said Viktor Vekselberg. Throughout the entire day Russian Startup Tour in Krasnoyarsk offered master classes by development institutes’ representatives and pitch sessions of regional innovation projects. Those were attended by a total of 350 young researchers, innovators and technological researchers based in Krasnoyarsk. 17 startups from Krasnoyarsk presented their projects during pitch sessions. Daniil Fedotov, a participant of the Krasnoyarsk event, described the road show business agenda as having: “a great many high-profile experts, who are, on the one hand, are knowledgeable about serious issues, but, on the other, quite approachable. I feel like it is over a cup of tea that particularly important agreements are reached and breakthrough inventions are made. It is informal atmosphere that really prompts them.” In his closing address based on the results of the tour of the Siberian cities Advisor to the President of the Skolkovo Foundation Pekka Viljakainen advised to young entrepreneurs against giving up should luck be slow to come their way: “If this day did not count you among the winners, this does not in the least mean that your project is generally a failure. More than once have I put down a project as doomed to be an utter failure, upon its first review. And yet, a few months later, when the same project was presented to me, yet substantially fine-tuned, I chose to invest my own funds into it”. All in all, the series of events held by the Russian Startup Tour in Siberia have helped to select dozens of projects which are to take part in the Startup Village, an ambitious startup forum to be held in early June 2014 on the Skolkovo Innovation Centre premises.
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