From Russia with Love
July 28th, 2010 by Sandbox
Me and my local informant
Officially on a short holiday between St. Petersburg and Moscow, I was also on a mission: organize a Sandbox dinner in both these cities.
Thanks to the great help of several Sandbox members from Russia and abroad, we could put together a small event in St. Petersburg and a bigger one in Moscow.
The latter was truly amazing: 25 people showed up, representing the creme de la creme of Russian entrepreneurship. I had the chance to meet the founders of several Russian startups, a student involved in a government project aiming to redesign the Russian education landscape as well as top senior people such as Alexander Galitsky, a renowned Russian investor.
Alexander Galitsky
There was one word on all lips: Skolkovo, the Russian Silicon Valley project. Announced by President Dmitry Medvedev in March 2010, it will consist in a high-tech hub for scientists and entrepreneurs to help Russia develop and commercialize new technologies.
Initially, Skolkovo will focus on five priority directions for Russia: energy, IT, telecommunications, biomedicine and nuclear technologies. The territory of Skolkovo innovation center (also called Innograd) will host branches of multinational corporations, as well as top tier graduate programs. It will provide tax incentives, easy access to new clients, and mechanisms to finance and sell new ideas.
One thing is certain, Russia has a lot of young talents and we wouldn’t be surprised to see a new Sandbox hub with more regular events emerging soon in the capital.
Antoine is a co-founder and the CEO of Sandbox. He can’t resist to link here the song that rythmed his holiday.
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