Finding a foothold inside yourself and creating something new: Space Day business forum was held in Minsk

Today, September 15, Minsk hosted a large-scale business forum for the development and support of student initiatives Space Day, which gathered about two thousand participants at the Falcon Club Arena. The event was attended by young entrepreneurs, experts, students and employees of Belarusian universities, as well as business teams looking for new resources and useful connections for scaling projects. The organizers of the forum are the Startup Center of BSU and the youth entrepreneurial community StartUp Space, the correspondent of sb.by reports.

At the forum, the Republican Space University accelerator for early stage projects, the Space CorpAcc corporate program, the new hackathon season were presented, the Space Media media portal was launched, and grant holders from the High Technologies Park were awarded.

Speakers were the chairman of the StartUp Space public association of BSU Egor Oliferko, as well as invited guests, students and graduates of the university, founders of Belarusian organizations in the field of education, IT, banking services, promotion, sales. They shared their experience of developing their business projects from the initial stage to the modern state, talked about the possibilities of creating an entrepreneurial career from the student bench, useful tools for doing business, ways to find partners, common mistakes of beginners. At the end of the event, a secret headliner – the head of the IT direction of BatteryFly, the co-founder of the BatteryFly EZS network, Andrei Volkov, made a speech.

There is an interactive exhibition next to the stage. There, participants were able to personally communicate with the forum partners, learn about their startup support programs and participate in the draws.

Head of the Secretariat of the Supervisory Board of the High Technologies Park Anna Ryabova noted:

- In my opinion, the forum is a story about when young people are ready to realize their ambitions and come here to consolidate, exchange experience, find investors. They can create, work, find support within themselves and create something new. The HTP’s task is to help companies grow, which, perhaps, in the future will enter the world market and glorify Belarus, as well as bring considerable dividends to themselves and the country.

For several years, HTP has been closely coordinating the youth startup movement. With the support of the Ministry of Education, partnerships have been built with 12 universities.

- I would like to note that the Minister himself is closely involved in this area. Our goal is to create points of attraction for active and ambitious young people in these universities, so that they can gradually develop their skills, increase their competencies, collect cool and interesting teams for venture investors. In turn, they are willing to invest in projects. Venture investing is investing money in a startup without obligations. And it fires once in ten, and investors themselves, you know, are brave. When we began to understand that there are responses from both sides, the number of promising start-ups began to grow, said Anna Ryabova.

With the consent of the Supervisory Board of the High Technologies Park, headed by Prime Minister Alexander Turchin, all start-up cells of 12 universities were supported. Today, 30 selected HTP students received their first scholarships. They created creative products and monetized some.

- We already have some first deals that we are proud of. Four startups found about $100,000 in investments, while the previous pool of companies we had was about 30, and there were twice as many venture investors who immediately wanted to look at these startups. As you can see, four companies are already more than ten percent. That is, the statistics work: several more companies have already entered the negotiations, and some have become HTP residents, the head of the HTP Supervisory Board Secretariat informed.

In her opinion, the startup movement is a great story when it can shoot out venture capital financing. But that doesn’t mean everyone who enters this field will remain startups. They acquire new competencies and replenish other areas: traditional sectors of the economy, teaching, some other. Therefore, no one will be lost and we will have a profit as a state in any case, Anna Ryabova stressed:

- However, let me add that in terms of the volume of attracted investments, we are still at the initial stage. The Belarusian market is still very poor in venture financing. Therefore, if such companies were included in a more developed investment infrastructure, they could get money an order of magnitude more. Another task is to develop the infrastructure of venture financing in the country.

- This is the beauty of startups, which is useless to predict. The only technological trend that I can highlight, and it is present in almost all startups, is artificial intelligence. Options for the use of technological stuffing can be completely different. Our venture capitalists are equally diverse. And we hope that their number will increase.

Welcoming the participants of the event, Minister of Education Andrei Ivanets noted that bright energy, intellectual potential and desire to implement their project are felt from the youth present in the hall:

- And most importantly, you have everything you need today. In particular, the youth business community that unites you. And, of course, teachers, mentors, as well as sponsors who are ready to invest financially in your projects.