The first Startup Weekend was held in Technopark “Idea” in Kazan from November 19, 2010 till November 21, 2010.
The event was organized by «Glavstart» Company jointly with Microsoft Innovation Center and Youth Business Club «Navigator» with the support of Innovative Technopark “Idea”.
Startup Weekend is a three-day session, which becomes a key link in the chain: Idea-Prototype-Project and which a start-up should pass. The aim of the Startup Weekend – is to call together the team and attract mentor in the project: IT-market professional, ready to contribute knowledge and relationships to the project.
The Startup Weekend participants were provided with assistance of IT specialists and experts, offering the possibility to create the working investment-attractive project.
The event was conducted by the presenter and one of the experts, the thought leader of Russian Internet – Arkadiy Moreynis (Creator of Price.ru, Ex-director of Rambler products, General Director of “Glavstart”), among the experts there were well-known professionals of RuNet as well: Grigoriy Bakunov (Yandex), Dmitriy Stepanov (Rambler-Afisha), Askar Tuganbayev (STS-media), Nailya Zamashkina (Mail.ru), Aleksey Basov (Finam), as well as resident of Technopark “Idea” – Director of «SmartHead» Company – Igor Zilberg and others.
More than 160 persons took part in the Startup Weekend. The authors of 22 projects and ideas from Kazan, Nizhniy Novgorod, Cheboksary, Yoshkar-
Ola and Nizhnekamsk jointly with renowned experts of “Glavstart” thought how to transform the idea into reality, bring idea to the market, find an audience and investment. Participants managed to get consultation and work together with experts of IT-market, six (6) projects found its mentor who will assist them not only in rendering the knowledge and experience in the market, but also relationships, channels and, possibly, attracting investments.
Brainstorm, where the participants came up with ideas for business in company with the thought leader of RuNet, was organized within the “Weekend” for those who came without a project and did not find the desired team.
Kazan Startup Weekend became a part of the Global Startup Battle (http://globalstartupbattle.com/) – the best Kazan Weekend project, in the public opinion, will enter in open competition with projects from Washington, Tokyo, Beirut, Iceland and Brazil. Therefore, that Weekend’s task for experts became more complicated: every expert ought to make the best efforts to assist all projects in finding its strong points and develop in the right direction in an effective way.
Within Kazan “Startup Weekend” the head of the project search and preliminary examination department (Technopark “Idea”) – Maria Mukhametshina acquainted the participants with the mechanisms and tools for international cooperation support in the Republic of Tatarstan on the example of “Gate2RuBIN” Project, which is focused on informing the existing and potential small and medium-sized enterprises of the existence of European Business Support Network (EEN) and the opportunities provided by this Network and Technopark “Idea” as the regional party of the Network.