From 2 to 4 October 2013 the Sixth St. Petersburg International Innovation Forum will be held in St. Petersburg. It is one of the most important business events in the city. NRU ITMO is traditionally an active participant of the Forum.

On October 4 the ITMO University with The U.S. Russia Foundation for Economic Advancement and the Rule of Law USRF will organize a round table "Problems of the flow of innovative projects in the regions of the Russian Federation". The round table will address the practical aspects of the problems of regional innovation development, as well as challenges of creating a stable stream of innovative business projects and the role of universities in regional innovation ecosystem. 

Among the speakers are: Igor Kudinov, the principal of the Center for the ITMO University Regional Cooperation, co-founder AxisPoint Consulting; Nikolai Toivonen, the Vice President for Strategic Development of the ITMO University; Nina Yanykina, the head of The ITMO University innovation, executive in charge of projects of the "EUREKA"; Sergey Bogdanov, CEO of Non-proffit Partnership Regional Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre (Samara region).

On the same day from 2 to 6 pm graduates of V educational mentoring program SUMIT will present their projects. Among the guests are:

  • Bruce Turner, the U.S. Consul General in St. Petersburg;
  • Damian Dobershteyn, the Partner of venture fund eVentures, the co- founder KupiVIP.ru;
  • Gabriel Levy, the Founder of Dnevnik.ru;
  • Dmitry Filatov, the Founder of topface.com;
  • Sergei Kotyrev, the CEO of Umi Studio, UMI.CMS;
  • Kirill Varlamov, the CEO of the Fund of Development of Internet initiatives.


On 3 of October at 4:30 pm the round table "How to beat the robot, or the Real Steel today!" will be organized. It will be dedicated to the commercialization of high-technology projects in the universities. Alexey Bobtsov, the dean of the Computer Technologies Faculty of The ITMO University, Michael Auerbach and Sergey Fradkov, the managing partners of a start-up accelerator iDealMachine, representatives of University of Mechanical Engineering and the State Technical University of Novosibirsk will share their experiences.