Skolkovo is the startups. Buildng new companies for Russia is not a short term project. With the support of the big Russian institutions and ministries they made a tour across Russia to see what the entrepreneurship means outside Moscow. 4400 people participated in the first event, and all of them had positive a "no-fear" attitude, said Pekka Viljakainen, the advisor to the president of Skolkovo in an interview with the VoR on the sidelines of the SPEF 2013. I'm very grateful that you came here. Let us start with your project. It's just finished. Can you tell us about the results? First of all, building of tens of thousands of new companies for Russia is not a short project and there are different milestones, but it is true that with the support of Russian institutions, Russian venture companies, RosMolodezh, Skolkovo and all the key ministries we made a tour across Russia - 16 cities, 24,000 km and 7,000 people - to see what it is like outside of Moscow, outside of Saint Petersburg. Then we made Startup Village at the end of May. It was like a Woodstock, it was like a rock concert of the start-ups, not a very formal meeting for the companies to learn from each other. Many Russians were very skeptical, but actually we had 4,400 people at first event. And of course, I'm not objective to say what the result was, but if you go to the Skolkovo booth - you'll see companies, almost all of them got financing, almost all of them got network of new companies. And I think this kind of positive, no-fear attitude is the most important thing there. You can really do big things in Russia in entrepreneurship. You said that the Russians were skeptical. But how about the foreigners? I think that, first of all, there's a big generation shift everywhere in the world. If you see my parents or parents of the Chinese entrepreneurs, - this kind of a fear factor is a part of the history. And the young generation has a little bit different view. If you read newspapers, if you real politics, if you read this kind of public broadcasting - there are not so many good stories about new start-ups, new innovations. People might think, "Ok, it's not possible here in Russia." The purpose of everything what we do - whether it's Skolkovo, whether it's Startup Village - it's just to show what is already happening. It's not PR, it's not promotion. If we can get this kind of a snowball effect to happen, it will do everything by itself. In Finland, where I originally come from, Nokia was in trouble, because Nokia was such a big company and then yesterday here, at economic forum, one guy asked me, "What would be the Nokia of Russia?" I said that if the oil price would be 45$, everybody would be very interested about startups. So the point with all these activities is to prepare Russia and ecosystem that Russia is ready if the oil prices are 45$. Do we have special time if the prices fall? No, I think, first of all, the thing is that Asia is extremely strong in world economy. U.S.A. has been strong. Latin America is getting stronger. And to me, Russia belongs to the whole world, Russia is part of Europe. So we don't have any time to lose, so to say. We have to make sure that Russia belongs to Europe. We have guys in Vladivostok thinking differently, but we have to get this area stronger. For example, next week when Mr. Putin is going to Finland, instead of talking about traditional businesses like energy or wood, I'm sure that the President is going to talk about the startups, new technologies. That's why it's not only one project. It's a much-much bigger project what we're doing. But there're still a lot of concerns about startups, because I heard that the investors are tied with these startup stories. It was a top theme two or three years ago that everybody was obsessed with startups. But now we need a new story or a new interpretation of this. No, I strongly disagree. The Voice of Russia
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