WASHINGTON, September 11 – Russian and American entrepreneurs, whizz-kids, investors and government officials will gather next week in Boston and Silicon Valley for the second “Russian Innovation Week” conference intended to boost bilateral tech-business cooperation, according to the official website.
Backed by the Russian organizations RUSNANO, RVC and The Skolkovo Foundation, the invite-only event will bring together “over 200 investors” seeking to put their money in biotech, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, nanotechnology and IT industries, the website said.
Key Russian figures in attendance will include RUSNANO chief executive Anatoly Chubais, Igor Agamirzian, RVC chief and the Russian oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, who is president of the Skolkovo Foundation.
The event kicks off Tuesday in Boston before moving to California for a further two days. Explaining the single day in Boston, Axel Tillmann, head of RVC-USA, told the Boston Herald website: “The East Coast corridor — New York to Boston — is equally as strong as Silicon Valley,”
While the conference is intended as a platform to showcase bilateral business opportunities, the backers of the event also reveal the extent of Russian government involvement in the Russian technology sector.
RUSNANO is a state-backed nanotechnology company, RVC is a government venture capital fund while the Skolkovo Foundation, whose activities include building a city dedicated to research and technological innovation, was founded by the Russian government in 2010 and has received substantial funding from the state.
