Attracting Investment into the Development of the Digital Economy in Russia – Successful Experiences of Early Investors

Blockchain technology, which has appeared just 10 years ago, is the one that absorbed, consumed and even turned into a tool another technology: the Internet. Now it is just a tool that the blockchain can use. In 5 or 7 years, I think, the blockchain, will replace the Internet as we know it now — Sergey Khristiani, Head, BlockChallenge Russia Project.

Today, finger biometrics technology faces the problem of overlapping that occurs in 1500 to 2000 images, and software shortcomings lead to errors and failures in the process of identification. We have developed a system that shows no overlapping in 40,000 images in the test mode. We can say that at some point there will be no overlapping in a database of 200,000 images — Sergey Khristiani, Head, BlockChallenge Russia Project.

Our team has pilot projects implemented within different ecotones. Those are projects to create a transparent supply chain in retail and pharmaceuticals: projects aimed at reducing the volume of smuggled goods. We also have a pilot project to automate accounts with contractors in the power engineering industry. Based on our experience we have designed and launched a solution for the oil market. We have concluded partnership agreements with Sberbank and Auchan to create joint products. At the moment, we are actively improving our skills in the field of mining, and we are creating three products with the MIPT engineering centre — Vladislav Duplyakin, General Director, StartBlock.

Our project involves 11 Russian cities and 10 cities in China: it is a large-scale project. We discovered 200 business stars that came to us on a competitive basis — Aleksey Ezhov, Creator, "International Youth Business Incubator" Project.

Our team took part in the Russian-Chinese incubator in 2017 as a resident. Back then, within 20 days of our visit to the city of Qingdao we held about 50 business meetings with various companies and enterprises from completely different areas of business. <...> Over that year, our group concluded a total of 11 agreements of intent with various companies in Qingdao — Mikhail Derevyanko, Director, Future of Today.

Today, our team is very young, and it is very important and promising for the Russian Union of Youth to support young innovators and new technology start-ups. Unfortunately, as of today, we can state the fact that our government does not need those start-ups. We have encountered a barrier in communication with representatives in the federal government — Tatyana Seliverstova, Executive Chairman, Russian-Chinese Young Entrepreneurs Club.

Brain drain leads to a crisis in our country’s technological and industrial progress — Tatyana Seliverstova, Executive Chairman, Russian-Chinese Young Entrepreneurs Club.

The advantage of our solutions is that they work on independent blockchain. The data transfer rate that our blockchain currently performs is a million images per second, a million requests; Bitcoin’s is around 50. A million – that is modestly speaking, expectations are even higher. <...> All our solutions work on blockchain 3.0; it was not accidental that we moved on from 2.0 and gave it that name. Anything that works on blockchain 3.0 can work in any government and business spheres, in any sphere of the national economy. Bottomline is that it is very fast: a million one-time requests per second; you can make it global or local and implement it into any sphere — Sergey Khristiani, Head, BlockChallenge Russia Project.

There is one goal of our business incubator: we help young people to discover new markets for their projects, for their products — Aleksey Ezhov, Creator, "International Youth Business Incubator" Project.

The Russian youth business incubator project is a very good example, or as they say now, the best practice of interaction between the government and personal initiative, including the Russian Union of Youth — Rasim Galyamov, Minister of Economy of Omsk Region.

Every rouble invested in the incubator today brings 70 times more. So, thanks to such investments from Rosmolodezh into our project, we increase conversion from the standpoint of creating actual business projects on the international scene — Tatyana Seliverstova, Executive Chairman, Russian-Chinese Young Entrepreneurs Club.

Working in this industry, as well as in any other industry that wants to develop, must be competitive. Because when many investors, funds are large companies literally run for young start-uppers and beg them on their knees to take their money – that is unhealthy too; that discourages them and ultimately leads to deterioration in quality of the final product — Boris Zabavnikov, Chief Trader-Analyst, Blockchain Technology Start-Up Academy.

When few years ago we thought about the need to create a system for selecting and working with blockchain start-ups in Russia – with cryptocurrency start-ups, with decentralized start-ups – even back then we understood that professional academic background should be put front and centre — Boris Zabavnikov, Chief Trader-Analyst, Blockchain Technology Start-Up Academy.