IIT-B’s Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) in Mumbai and Global Venture Alliance (GVA) in Moscow are partnering to run a bilateral entrepreneur exchange program, entitled India Russia Bridge for Innovations (IRBI). In the second half of September this year, a cohort of ten innovative startups from across India will participate in a 2-week accelerator program in Moscow that will include educational, practical, networking and cultural components aiming to facilitate a structured introduction into the Russian market.
The program is the first initiative between India and Russia with a focus on science and technology based entrepreneurship. The entire program is fully sponsored and supported by the Government of India’s Department of Science and Technology (DST), and the GVA in anticipation that partnerships and collaborations forged in course of IRBI, will not only lay foundations for increased bilateral trade across the nations, but also further goals of key national initiatives like Start-Up India, Make-in-India and Digital India.
The selected startups are in areas of medical devices and applications, energy, IoT, Ed-tech and Retail Tech. The startups have been identified on the basis of scalability, and with the inputs from GVA for potential of immediate partnership with businesses in Russia. The expected outcome of the program is for the entrepreneurs to acquire knowledge from experts in Russia in order to find partners, clients and test their products in local market through a collaborative ecosystem. There is also a potential to pioneer new cross border partnerships and collaborative programs between the two countries.
Relevance
As Dmitry Rogozin, the deputy prime minister of Russia and his Indian counterpart, Sushma Swaraj meet on September 13th in New Delhi at the 22nd session of the Indo-Russian Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC) to discuss a plethora of topics including expanding bilateral trade to reach the $30 Billion goal, Indian entrepreneurs behind 10 innovative startups will leave for Moscow the very next day for this one-of-a-kind Indo-Russian entrepreneur exchange program in attempt to do further just that goal.
Leading up to the much anticipated India-Russia summit between PM Modi and President Putin on the sidelines of the 6th BRICS Summit in Goa on 15-16th of October, officials and entrepreneurs in both India and Russia have been eager to make the ambitious commitment of increasing the bilateral trade threefold in the next decade a reality.
Programs such as the IRBI will go a long way in sparking a strong bilateral economic tie in innovation and entrepreneurship between the two nations.
About the India Russia Bridge for Innovations (IRBI)
The program with its educational, practical, networking and cultural components will facilitate a structured introduction into Russia for the participating startups. This two-week immersion program will cover a plethora of topics ranging from the ways to engage the 150 million strong Russian market to the nuances of doing business there. The entrepreneurs, other than attending networking events with a wide range of industry stakeholders, will also visit the Skolkovo Innovation Park, a one-of-a-kind Innovation and Entrepreneurship hub just outside Moscow.
About the selected Startups
Field Assist – Divir Tiwari – is an on-field sales monitoring tool for mobile sales teams using smartphones and tablets. Website – http://fieldassist.in
Ecolibrium Energy – Harit Soni – Big Data Energy analytics Platform provides the insights that increases operational efficiency of utilities, commercial & industrial consumers by optimizing energy usage & improving asset utilization. Website – http://ecolibriumenergy.com
Transcell Biologics – Dr Subhadra Dravida – Transcell is a Biotech company with a strong commitment to develop innovative & transformative stem cell based approaches in advancing evidence based practice in disease management. Website – http://transcell.in
Frodo – Amardeep Singh – A technology start-up striving to create the perfect adventure camera called Frodocam which could be the world’s first truly wearable camera which you can strap on your wrist, head, bike or any adventure gear. Website – http://www.frodocam.com
A3 RMT – Vishal Shah – Customizes wireless portable medical technology to tackle area-specific healthcare inefficiencies in emerging markets, with innovative and reliable products. Website – http://a3rmt.com
Medprime Technologies – Binil Jacob – is a medical device company, dedicated to developing the best, customer-centric solutions for the healthcare needs of people around the world, with a focus on patient monitoring and diagnostic devices. Website – http://medprimetech.com
CareNx Innovations – Aditya Kulkarni – builds technologies to deliver healthcare services to remote patients using mobile platforms, it’s latest offerings are in the prenatal caregiving sphere. Website – http://carenx.com
Algosurg Products – Amit Maurya – is developing the next generation of products, that can revolutionise the way surgeries are being performed, using advanced computing methods, enhanced visualisation and automation. Website – http://www.algosurg.com/
Campus Time – Amruta Desai – is a mobile app for students on college campuses to engage with their college community by making it easy to connect, collaborate & explore. Website – http://www.campusti.me
ShopsUp – Anmol Vij – is a hyperlocal store discovery app with cognitive capabilities, which enhances the shopping experience of it’s users and helps brick and mortar stores to get more relevant foot traffic to their stores. Website – http://www.shopsup.com
About SINE
The Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) is a leading technology business incubator backed by IIT Bombay. Since it’s inception, SINE has incubated over 85 startups of which many are revenue generating, raised many rounds of funding and also have cross border operations.
About GVA
Global Venture Alliance (GVA)’s primary focus is on high-tech entrepreneurs. GVA, based out of Moscow’s central administrative district, organizes development programs for high-tech entrepreneurs, educates and invests in them. It works closely with Governments, large international corporations and investors in a number of countries. The company currently has permanent offices in San Francisco and Moscow and also has over 20 partners in different countries around the world.