Nizhny Novgorod buzzers became interested in opening their business

Young Nizhny Novgorod residents, as well as Russians in general, are increasingly interested in entrepreneurship, despite the common stereotype about the reluctance of Generation Z (zoomers) to work. MegaFon and the Innovation Promotion Foundation came to this conclusion after studying the business interests of young people. In September of this year, resources devoted to business development grants, benefits and educational programs for start-ups attracted 24% more start-up entrepreneurs than in May.

Analysis of the impersonal data of MegaFon allowed to identify the regions where young people show the greatest interest in starting their own business. Most often, opportunities for starting a business are interested in yesterday’s students from large agglomerations and economically active regions. In addition to the Nizhny Novgorod region, the leaders are Moscow and the Moscow region, Krasnodar Territory, St. Petersburg and Leningrad region, Rostov region, Tatarstan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Bashkortostan, Stavropol Territory, Dagestan and Kemerovo region.

At the same time, among visitors to sites with government grants and technology development programs, girls of Generation Z noticeably predominate – they account for more than 82% of traffic.

Among the online platforms dedicated to entrepreneurship, the federal portal of the Foundation for the Promotion of Innovation (fasie.ru) is the most popular. It accounts for 33% of the thematic traffic. This is followed by the ecosystem of digital services of the SME Corporation (corpmsp.ru) with a share of 23% and my business.rf - 22%. Another 14% of traffic is attracted by urban entrepreneurship development centers and specialized business accelerators, and 8% by regional microfinance and property support programs.

“A new generation of entrepreneurs is thinking in digital terms, and from the outset they see business as a high-tech project. Young companies are actively implementing IT solutions to attract customers, develop sales and improve the efficiency of internal processes. For example, MegaFon Target helps to find and attract the target audience, and mobile information services – to build communication with customers and tell them about new offers. To organize the work of the team, entrepreneurs can use the “Platform for Business”, and “Virtual PBX” and the “Number 8-800” service help to avoid missing appeals from potential customers and manage sales more effectively. As the company grows, solutions for placing IT systems, storing data and automating business processes, for example, MegaFon Cloud, are becoming in demand, explains Sergey Kulichenko, Director of the Sales and Implementation of Digital Solutions Directorate at MegaFon.

According to the Innovation Promotion Foundation, 92% of grant applications for youth technology entrepreneurship are submitted by participants born in 2000 and later. In 2026, 2,250 winners of the Student Startup contest received grants in the amount of 1 million rubles. Of these, 87% belong to the generation of buzzers, and 14% are younger than 20 years. Most of the supported projects are related to digital and manufacturing technologies, as well as the development of new appliances.

Supporting youth technology entrepreneurship is one of the key activities of the Innovation Promotion Fund. The Fund’s programs allow developers of innovative solutions to move from an idea to creating their own products in demand on the market. At the moment, the Foundation is accepting applications within the framework of the 8th stage of the Student Startup contest – this is a great opportunity to receive funding for the launch of its own technology company and start creating a prototype of a future solution, which can then be finalized during the transition to more mature support tools, says Andrey Zhizhin, CEO of the Innovation Promotion Foundation.

Digital technologies are most in demand among participants, including projects in the field of artificial intelligence. The top three destinations also include biotechnology and creative industries, where young entrepreneurs find new ones.