Startup Village

This year Startup Village will host over 12,000 participants, 2,000 startups and 700 investors from 20 countries around the world. In addition to Skolkovo’s traditional areas (IT, energy efficiency technologies, space technologies, nuclear technologies and biotechnologies), the program will now include a new trend – agricultural technologies. This section will include topics such as 'Genomic and Conventional Selection of Plants and Animals', 'Precision Agriculture', and 'Advanced Processing of Agro Raw Materials and Waste'. The program also includes visionary sessions on future technologies dealing with gadgets ('Big Mobile Revolution'), the role of women in innovation processes ('Womennovation'), and transportation ('Transport of the Future', 'Innovation in Railway Transport'). This year the additional program will see an entire pavilion devoted to interaction between art and science (Art&Science Day). All the gurus of modern art and science will gather in one place on June 2. They will talk about the amazing results that can be produced by the synergy of artists and scientists. The key speaker will be Dmitry Bulatov, the artist, theorist of art and curator of the National Center for Contemporary Art, whose works were presented at 49th and 50th Venice Biennials. The most spectacular event of the Startup Village 2016 will be the Open International Championship FORMULA DRONE (FPV Drone Racing), which any multicopter owner can take part in. An esports tournament will be held at Startup Village for the first time. The competition is co-organized by Riot Games – developer of world famous League of Legends, MSI – the manufacturers of superior gaming computers, and Click Storm – a Russian startup, which launched an online platform for organizing esports battles. 8 top teams chosen of 120 teams with 600 participants will compete for the prize at the final round at Startup Village. A separate zone will showcase augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR Zone). In addition, Sberbank will hold an Open Big Data Championship. This year, the Startup Village website has an SV Partner service, where startups and investors can easily arrange meetings during the event. Featured filters help them find a desired partner and pre-arrange the meeting schedule. The additional program includes several workshops on intellectual property to help startups gain crucial business and international communication skills. Here are just some of the innovation community headliners who will take part in the Startup Village 2016: • Knut Sauer, Vice President of Hyperloop Tech, will present the vacuum train project advertised by Elon Musk. This is a new means of transportation where passenger pods travel at a supersonic speed (over 1,200 km/h). The hyperloop pods will cover 600 km in as little as 35 minutes. • Rösler Philipp, Managing Director and Member of the Managing Board of the World Economic Forum. Former Vice-Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Federal Minister of Economics and Technology, and Federal Chairman of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). • Derrick Xiong, co-founder of EHang who launched EHang 184 – a safe, smart and eco-friendly autonomous aerial vehicle designed for travelling short-to-medium distances. He is one of the World's Top 100 Student Entrepreneurs, Forbes 30 Under 30 Chinese Entrepreneurs 2015 and 2016, and Most Innovative 50 Companies 2015 in China. • Pekka Lundmark, CEO Fortum, the largest energy provider in Northern and Eastern Europe. • Yoshihide Hayashizaki, Director of the RIKEN Preventive Medicine and Diagnosis Innovation Program, a leading international expert in genome editing. • Mike Butcher, Chief Editor of TechCrunch, one of the most influential technology journalists in the world. • Mike Safyan, co-founder of Planet Labs, one of the most successful satellite imaging companies with a fleet of over 100 satellites. • Azad Gulzar, Head of Access Programs at Google India, Head of the Google RailWire Project to launch free high-speed Wi-Fi at railway stations in India. Other speakers and mentors of the event: Alec Saunders, Senior Director of Microsoft Ventures, Ziegler Volker, Head of 5G Leadership, Chief Architect, Mobile Networks in Nokia, Eugene Kaspersky, CEO Kaspersky Lab, Ruben Vardanyan, President of Vardanyan, Broitman and Partners, and many others. View the complete program here. A list of speakers and participants can be found here. Startup Village 2016 will take place at the Skolkovo Innovation Centre on June 2-3. This is the fourth gathering of technology entrepreneurs, the largest in Russia and other CIS countries. Young entrepreneurs and startups can participate in the Startup Village Competition, and win prizes ranging from $5,000 to $50,000. Participants can attend lectures, workshops, and discussion boards presented by global leaders in the innovation community. For two days the conference venue will host an exhibition of startup inventions – Startup Bazaar, with 100 new projects.