The past week in Israel was amazing, and I am sure the following days will be very exciting too. I’m landed at Moscow and will attend Startup Village conference tomorrow and the day after. FYI, Startup Village is the first annual youth entrepreurship and innovators conference, one of the most ambitious startup conferences in Russia, organized by Skolkovo in cooperation with partners.
For me, the most interesting stuff I heard is that this conference is culminated from a nationwide roadshow, called Russian Startup Tour 2013 which was held from 1st March to 29th April in 16 regions of Russia. Among 200 startup projects presented during the tour, 35 startups were selected and will participate in the final competition on stage of Startup Village conference. I am really eager to see what these Russian startups are working on and learn from them about the local startup ecosystem.
I will also join a panel in the morning of 27th with a group of high profile speakers from different background, including Martha Maznevski (IMD Business School), Mikko Kuusi (Startup Sauna Foundation), Peter Vesterbacka (Rovio), Edward Crawley (Skoltech President), Mark Shmulevich (Deputy Minister of IT and Telecommunication, Russian Federation), Anna Khan (Enterpreneur), Duvieusart Jean-Pascal (Investor). The topic is, Developing an Entrepreneurial Community. What can be learned from other startup societies? TechNode is doing a OK job in China driving Chinese web/mobile startup community. Sometime we are proud of we’ve contributed to the community, sometime we also feel frustrated as you have to face lots of issues existing in the not-so-healthy ecosystem. So I am really looking forwards to hearing the panelists’ opinion and experience, and explore how we can work with them in the new era of mobile industry.
With ~3000 attendees, 1000 representatives from local and international companies and 300 Russian and investors, Startup Village will definitely be a good show. See you around!