KazanSummit-2016: from paper Google Glass to applications for Pakistani children
15 most interesting IT start-up projects have been chosen at the largest business forum
The Laboratory of IT start-up projects ideas took place on the first day of KazanSummit-2016, where was the field editorial board of Realnoe Vremya. The main goal was to select 15 most interesting projects for their presentation on the invest-session KazanSummit with the participation of Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov. The correspondent of Realnoe Vremya attended the presentation and projects defence, including of the authorship by the Tatarstan young entrepreneurs.
Start in life for startuppers from the countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation
The Laboratory of IT start-up projects ideas of the II OIC Youth Entrepreneurship Forum took place on the first day of the VIII International economic summit 'Russia –Islamic world: KazanSummit-2016'. The event can be called a kind of start in life, because it is the place where will be selected 15 out of 50 submitted projects of young entrepreneurs. They were presented at the KazanSummit invest-session with the participation of Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov, the Minister of Information and Communication of the Republic of Tatarstan Roman Shaikhutdinov, the head of Investment Development Agency Taliya Minullina, the president of OIC Youth Forum Elshad Iskandarov and others.
The Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Vladimir Leonov welcomed the participants on behalf of the government of the Republic of Tatarstan. He expressed hope that the forum will be held next year.
The OIC Youth Forum is a partner and an organizer of the event. The Forum is aimed at the search and support of the most interesting startup projects in the IT industry. Among the honored guests there were the president of the OIC Youth Forum Elshad Iskandarov, the director of technopark in sphere of high technologies IT-Park Anton Grachev, a co-founder of Unitas Communications company Muddassar Ahmed.
From the robot Arkasha to a system of selling webinars
In fact, despite a large number of participants from Russia and CIS countries, the working language at the presentations and during the communication was English. They worked strictly according to the rules: three minutes for a speech and three minutes for the session 'questions – answers'. Each group, presenting its project, pursued its own goals: some were looking for investors, the others — for partners for the implementation of their ideas.
There were several teams from Tatarstan. One of them presented the project Webinarbox, which is a system for creating and conducting selling webinars. At the moment, the company, that has already started its project, works in the IT-Park.
Also, there was the representative of the company Tattech, which is engaged in web development and works on the market since 2011. There was a lot of questions to them that boiled down to the fact that their developments are not new.
Another Tatarstan project — anthropomorphic robot AR-601 for distance learning. Almost in September of 2015, the robot together with Roman Shaikhutdinov managed to award grants to 50 students at nearly 5 million rubles. During this time the robot even got the nickname – Arkasha. It was created at the Institute of Engineering at KFU.
'Maybe, in Russian?'
Among other Russian projects there were presented glasses of virtual reality Boxglass, the cost of which starts from 490 rubles. The ex-head of the business incubator of Kazan IT-Park Yaroslav Shvetsov had the most number of questions among experts. The representatives of this company were asked how these glasses are fundamentally different from the market leader Google Glass. However, despite all doubts, Shvetsov became explicitly interested in them: when listening to the other speakers, he tried them on and gave to try on to his colleagues from the expert groups.
Among other countries to present their projects there were Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and even Australia. Some of the IT start-up projects were devoted to sport, and some — tourism.
The Pakistanis presented the application with the help of which they propose to deal with a very important issue in Pakistan. According to the developer, in Pakistan, more than 27 million children do not go to schools due to the poverty. The solution – an educational application that will exist through advertising.
A young man presented an application for the sale and purchase of a car in Kyrgyzstan. According to him, it is not easy to do this there now. The solution – to collect all the most popular websites on this topic and to provide the resource with a search, filters and other necessary options.
After the presentation, the speaker was showered with questions, one of which was incomprehensible to the addressee. After listening to the question once again, he asked: 'Maybe in Russian?'
After that, the Russian language was heard – as it turned out, not everyone could speak English.
In general, the presentation and selection were held in the form of a forced march — the event lasted 4 hours, and then they were to announce 15 projects that were presented to the leadership of Tatarstan and foreign guests.