Andrew Bezrukov, Director for Strategic Marketing, GS Group, revealed the success story of private innovation cluster Technopolis GS, Kaliningrad region, at the 1st Meeting of Russian technoparks in Skolkovo. The speaker took part in the session on "The measures of state support of infrastructure across the territorial entities of the Russian Federation. Raising private capital for development of the Russian innovation infrastructure." The speech aroused great interest among representatives of Russian technoparks, business incubators, relevant ministries, universities and other participants of the Meeting.
Andrew Bezrukov, Director for Strategic Marketing, GS Group, pointed out an opportunity to leverage private investment for innovation infrastructure development under the conditions of public expenditures decline. It was exemplified by the innovation cluster Technopolis GS. Mechanisms of private technoparks accreditation in the relevant federal ministries to provide benefits by analogy with residents of special economic zones can be used to attract private capital. Such mechanisms include soft lending, tax incentives, subsidizing part of the costs to establish transport and social infrastructures. Introducing such measures of state support can significantly reduce charges of private investors who implement comprehensive infrastructure projects which will have a positive impact on the growth rates of the number of Russian technoparks.
Andrew Bezrukov also unveiled the opportunities of interaction between Technopolis GS and other technoparks to run the innovative projects. Thus, in early autumn 2014 a contract manufacturing of Rezonver multi-function welding machines was posted at Prancor, LLC, a part of Technopolis GS. Russian startup company Rezonver is a resident of the Astrakhan IT Park. It attracted investments worth 3 million US dollars to organize production at the Prancor plant. A test batch of devices will hit the market by the end of 2014 and it is expected to produce 50 000 machines during 2015.
"Almost any products developed by startups-residents of other technoparks can be mass produced at the Technopolis GS enterprises," – commented Andrew Bezrukov, Director for Strategic Marketing, GS Group. – We enable projects from other technoparks to start manufacturing the ready-made solutions with the help of our production capacities. In addition, we have the opportunity to render marketing support and to contribute to the product promotion and help it entering the market."
According to the Meeting organizers, the session dedicated to state support of innovation infrastructure was the most popular among participants. It was attended by representatives of the state technoparks and industrial parks with state participation, of the private innovation territorial cluster Technopolis GS and Sarov corporate Technopark. In the course of the panel discussion, the speakers came to conclusion that challenges faced by private infrastructure entities that are developed without government support coincide regardless of the way they are organized.
The 1st Meeting of Russian technoparks in Skolkovo brought together representatives of all national innovation infrastructures which allowed participants to exchange experience with a wide range of partners and associates. The event attracted around 200 industry representatives, including the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, Russian Venture Company, Moscow Innovation Development Centre, MSU Science Park and other companies.
