Tomsk Hosted U-Novus Forum of Young Researchers

Partners, operators, and alumni spoke about the way both parties benefit from interaction between startups and corporations, opportunities given by GenerationS to young entrepreneurs this year, GenerationS-2015 sectoral acceleration programs, development selection areas, and corporate partners who have supported tracks.

The speakers were: Dmitry Ivanov (Saturn RPU), Dmitriy Karelin (Saturn RPU), Alexander Loktionov (Loga Group), Alexey Yuzhakov (MIT, Promobot), Olga Babkina (TSU), Dimitry Maslennikov (MetaBeta), Vyacheslav Gershon (SAP Labs), and Olga Budnik (Next Capital). The discussion was moderated by Gulnara Bikkulova (RVC) and Vladimir Costeev (iR&Dclub).

Starting the discussion, Gulnara Bikkulova, RVC, said, "The accelerator format has originated in the world fairly recently – just ten or twelve years ago there were started the first private accelerators. Now there are more than 1,000 accelerators in the world, with about 200 corporate accelerators. That is, it is a phenomenon which is rapidly gaining momentum. It is believed that an accelerator really is a structure that can help any inventor and any researcher to develop a business model quickly based on their product and reach their consumers. There is a slogan used by accelerators - Die Fast or Grow Fast. This is the motto that underlies all the accelerators. That is, over three or six months, when the project is in the accelerator, the author of the project is to understand whether the project has some potential, whether the project has any market, and whether the project is to die or to grow into a large high-tech business."

Responding to a question from the audience about whether the open innovation tools are available to MIC companies, Dmitry Ivanov, Saturn RPU, said, "Saturn RPU is actively testing "open innovation" tools. We already have experience of working with small companies, including abroad. For example, now we are going to create a joint venture in Russia to work with composite materials. To make this business work, there was built a whole chain of western small and medium-sized businesses as technology vendors. For us, this project is the way to reduce cost, technological risks, and timing of project implementation. Participation in GenerationS-2015 is an opportunity to form around Saturn a network of Russian small innovative businesses that will become our partners and suppliers for new ambitious projects."

The best questions from the audience was the question by a student from Siberia. She asked why such serious experts were willing to invest their time and effort in working with students. The answer was given by Olga Babkina, TSU, who said, "There was a time when I was a student too. When we learned to commercialize new developments, we had no tools like GenerationS. We had to learn everything in practice. Now you have the opportunity to take the help of mentors and experts. The main thing is to make the first step."