Traditionally, SAP Labs CIS was an Industrial partner and sponsor of Russia Startup Village, the largest annual event within ecosystem of innovation in Russia run by Skolkovo Foundation on June 2-3.
SAP SE is a Key Partner of Skolkovo Foundation since 2011, the most active and initiative one, as Skolkovo officials say. And I can confirm it, as I do work with Skolkovo as SAP partner since October, 2013. The main reason we do it is our interest to develop Russia IT industry and market so that they reach their potential, which is really great. The more they are developed the better market we have for our products and technologies, the better specialists SAP can hire here to be a long-term technological leader, and the better partners we can engage to co-innovate.
The same we can say also about our partnership with Skolkovo whose duty is to grow ecosystem of innovation in Russia, to incubate, accelerate, and support the most promising startups in an a number of foresights, with IT as the most important one. So, we feel that we do have a chance to find potential co-innovation partners in Startup Village and offer them definite opportunities to develop their solutions and products and grow their business globally with SAP. This is the main reason why SAP is so active and invests so much time, expertise, and money to cooperate with Skolkovo overall and Startup Village, in particular.
Photo: Andrej Bievetski, MD at SAP Labs and Viacheslav Gershov in Russia Startup Village
This year we based our engagement into Startup Village on a platform of Internet of Things as one of the hottest topics of this entire event. SAP Labs and SAP CIS experts demonstrated several Industrial IoT scenarios and demos within SAP Booth, such as Port logistics (Port of Hamburg case), Air Travel, Smart Energy, Digital Farming, and the Chair for Medical examination of personnel before shifts (joint project with SAP partner Croc, whose expert worked with us both days). The last one demonstrated integration of SAP systems with robotic doctor, produced by Croc and Intel, so that all biomedical data could be collected without doctor's involvement.
Photo: Medical chair = Robotic Doctor
Russia Startup Village, the largest innovation event in Eastern Europe, was tremendous as usual this year. As organizers preliminary say, it has gathered about 10000 unique attendees in one place: start-uppers, investors, experts, corporate business people, media, academy society, and authorities from Government and Institutions of development. First Vice-Premier of Russian Federation Igor Shuvalov, Vice-Premier Arkady Dvorkovich, Minister of Information and Communication Nikolay Nikiforov, Head of Sberbank German Gref, Chairman of Renova Group and President of Skolkovo Foundation Victor Vekselberg, Finnish entrepreneur and creator of popular online game Angry Birds Peter Vesterbaka – it is quite an incomplete list of famous authorities and businessmen who took part in the work of Startup Village.
Photo: German Gref, Head of Sberbank visits startups’ booths (photo from Skolkovo web-site)
The same time, SAP participation in Startup Village was vast, deep, and diversified. SAP employees visited Startup Village, intensively working there for 1 or 2 days, including Clemens Daeschle, VP, COO at SAP Labs Network (SLN), and MD at SAP Labs Paris with his colleagues from SLN COO Office Patrick Grofig and Nadezhda Moreva, Andrej Bievetski, MD at SAP Labs CIS, Viacheslav Gershov, Business Development Director at SAP Labs CIS, Natalia Ivanova, COO at SAP Labs CIS, Denis Savkin, Head of CoE for SAP solutions and technologies at SAP CIS, and other colleagues from SAP SE, SAP Labs CIS, and SAP CIS.
Photo: Evgeniy Simonovich, SAP Senior Architect
Startup Village started at 10 a.m. on the 2nd of June, but multi-thousand audiences arrived much earlier there, since 8 a.m. – to register and prepare their booths and spaces ready to work. Several panel discussions and startup contests opened the first day, having started simultaneously in nine venues and stages. Viacheslav Gershov was in jury of the IoT contest “Internet of Everything: What Do Smart Things Talk About?” His task was not as simple as just to simply assess the pitches.
Photo: Trek "Internet of Everything: What Do Smart Things Talk About?"
He had to define which projects are so interesting to SAP that we are ready to award them with SAP Special prizes: three courses for developers in a new SAP training center launched in Moscow in April, two ones on SAP technologies for IoT and another on Development SW on HANA. Viacheslav has made a great home work when assessed about one hundred (100) projects to have a short list in this day. This contest was not the only one, in which he had to choose the winners; it was a dozen of others running this day. So, the choice was difficult and required to observe as much as possible.
Photo: Viacheslav in Jury
Photo: "Intelligence Retail presentation in Retail: New Interaction Between Customers and Sellers" trek
Meanwhile, SAP booth was very popular. We could observe the lines of people waiting for their turn to get… a plastic glass with sweet water and artificial ice inside. Surely, people want drink first when it is Sunny. Everything else follows next. And what did they do next? – They just have been making selfies with their cloud in hands and SAP logo behind. It was effective and cheap marketing trick, by the way. Thank you Evgeny Simonovich for this idea!
Photo: People at SAP booth staying in line for some marketing innovation
Later within a Party for Speakers and Investors, Clemens, Andrej, Viacheslav, and Natalia met Igor Bogachev, VP and IT Cluster Head at Skolkovo Foundation to discuss results and prospective of our cooperation. Igor is former MD at SAP CIS, and they know each other with Clemens for a long time. So, it was a very warm meeting. The results of previous years of our joint work were discussed, and we agreed that we have to deepen our interaction even more to mutually succeed. So, we started it just the next day
Photo: SAP – Skolkovo meeting in Startup Village (left to right: Clemens Daeschle, Natalia Ivanova, Andrej Bievetski, Igor Bogachev discuss the future)
The second day of Startup Village on June 3 was even more intensive and full of activities. The Sun and the heaviest rain changed each other several times this day as if they competed like startups did in their contests. The rain wanted to wet us thoroughly why the Sun tries to dry people each time. So, not only did innovative solutions and demos in our booth help participants to get know something new and interesting, but also to save themselves from the rain or the Sun.
As for us, we started the day from a joint SAP - Skolkovo Press conference dedicated to the new topic of our partnership around Industrial Internet of things.
Photo: Press conference (Left to right: Clemens Daeschle, Andrej Bievetski, Igor Bogachev, Viacheslav Gershov)
Participants spoke to the Media about the way Industrial IoT changes the World and business, what does SAP do in this direction, what does IT Cluster at Skolkovo do, and what we are going to do together, how SAP supports Skolkovo IoT startups and what are the most prospective directions. Andrej invited Media to visit Innovation Forum SAP for ISV's, a new format of event that SAP Labs created and runs for the third time on June 6 with Bernd Leukert, SAP SE Executive Board member as a key-note speaker. Clemens introduced SAP insight on IIoT concept and strengthened it by several exciting IIoT scenarios developed for our clients, such as Mercedes – AMG Harley Davidson, and Port of Hamburg. He also shared what does SAP executives do to develop IoT standards as a member of Industrial Internet Consortium and the Board of Platform Industry 4.0.
Photo: Clemens Daeschle is speaking about SAP approach to IIoT
Two panel discussions with SAP experts on board followed next in parallel.
Clemens and Andrej joint panel discussion “Things + Data = Money. Internet of Things Technologies” together with colleagues from Microsoft, Cisco, Rostelekom, Tekes, and some other companies and institutions. This panel was run by IT Cluster of Skolkovo and was dedicated to the most general principals, approaches, and technologies for developing IoT solutions. Here again they have been speaking about SAP approach to Internet of Things and the role SAP plays in the IoT World. Other participants have been sharing their opinions. Clemens also answered the question from the audience in regard to how a startup can cooperate with SAP and what technologies can it use for such cooperation.
Photo: Clemens and Andrej in a Panel discussion on IoT
Denis Savkin, Head of CoE for SAP solutions and technologies at SAP CIS took part as an expert in panel discussion “Industrial Internet - the new ideology of the product life cycle” run by two Industrial clusters of Skolkovo Foundation: the Cluster Energy efficient technologies and the Cluster of Nuclear and High Industry technologies. Denis had quite different interlocutors. There were technical directors and experts from industrial companies, who use IIoT to develop new business models and make it more effective to produce in their companies who are SAP actual and potential customers. Nevertheless, Denis said it was really an interesting and very useful experience.
Photo: Denis Savkin speaking in the panel for IIoT
Immediately after the first panel the heavy rain fell down to the field of Startup Village. We took our legs onto hands to quickly reach the van waiting for us. We had to have an excursion to observe the territory of Innovation Center Skolkovo, including some areas and objects under construction. “It is a kind of extreme", - one can say. Maybe. But we have got our pleasure with a great use for understanding the processes within Skolkovo and their plans. It was really amazing, although it was outside of Startup Village topics. Under rain, we crossed the territory and observed new technoparks for startups as well as business centers for partners, some of which large International and large Russian companies build as their own properties. For example, Boeing is going to open their center for training pilots just in the nearest days. Cisco continues construction of the office for both R&D organization and their local market unit. Sbertech (Sberbank’s daughter company) is building their own data center as well as the office for 8000 employees. Moscow medical cluster is going to locate there their clinics and research centers. We have seen also the future building of Skoltech, the technical University started in partnership with MIT, accommodation are with apartments and cottages for rent by the residents of Innovation center, partners and Skoltech professors. We got know about the plans to build a new railway station and in some years to build a railroad for a high-speed train from Moscow. Together we visited Hypercube, the innovative building used for conferences, built first in Skokovo from the new materials that make it autonomous and help to keep energy consumption on a low level. We have been in the future shopping gallery, which will serve as the way from railway station to the offices. As Clemens said, it was amazing. When he was in Skolkovo in 2010, it was a large and empty field there. And today, it is already a kind of a small city which will start living a full life very soon.
Photo: WithIn Skolkovo construction area. Left to right: Clemens Daeschle, Andrej Bievetski, Patrick Grofig, Nadezhda Moreva. The new technopark for startups is behind.
Photo: Clemens examines a construction plan
We had to hurry back to Startup Village, because our colleagues Sergey Kuzin and Evgeniy Simonovich, both senior architects for SAP solutions and technologies had to start a master-class on how to build an IoT application using SAP technologies just within half an hour. It was in a temporary wooden pavilion between two of four main buildings of today’s Skolkovo technopark. So, we worried whether some number of people come there. Fortunately, promotion work was well-done, and the master class awaked interest. It was more than 100 people listening to how to use HCP for their IoT solutions. Thanks to the very interesting presentation and speaking skills of our colleagues, the audience was full of attention from the beginning till the its very end.
Photo: Sergey Kuzin runs the master class on IoT
Photo: Master class on IoT solution based on SAP technologies. The audience
After some more unsuccessful attempts of a heavy rain to drive away people from Startup Village stopped, the Startup Village itself was coming to its final stage as a triumpher. Skolkovo may be really proud of it.
At 6 p.m. all discussions were finished, master classes run, meetings came to their ends, and contests passed. Only the results were not announced yet. And it was their turn.
Alexander Chernov, Senior Vice president at Skolkovo Foundation started the award ceremony both impressive and expressive as usual. First the students of Skolkovo Open University have got their awards, than partners and sponsors have distributed their prizes, and finally the winners of super final of Startup Village were honored. As one can guess, we were in the second part of this super action.
This year SAP CIS has opened a new SAP Education Center, just in the same building with SAP Labs. So, we agreed to help our colleagues to promote it with the benefit to our activities on developing ecosystem of innovation in Russia. We decided to award three prizes, so that their winners could study SAP education courses and learn how they can develop on HANA and use SAP technologies to develop their own IoT solutions.
So, our main criterion for the choice was to award those startups who may need this knowledge to get more advantage for their business. As we look for the companies who can have a wish and capabilities to co-innovate with SAP, we also were looking for those nominees whose projects may have some synergy with our priorities in business and technologies of SAP.
We awarded Intelligence Retail, a startup developing a SaaS to analyze shelves in stores by photos in order to completely fulfill planograms and grow the efficiency of their utilization. Something similar SAP Innovation Center Network does in their projects, but this startup promises the unprecedented results so that our International colleagues said they are interested to contact them and try their technology. Intelligence retail was awarded by a certificate for one course HA450 “Application development for SAP HANA” for free.
Two other certificates, both for courses WRUIOT “IoT in motion based on SAP technologies”, were given to two IoT startups, both developing their solutions for agriculture.
One of them, Anicon, works out an IoT solution (HW+SW) for precision farming, while another one, Agro Robotics Systems aims at developing a SW+HW complex, which will manage a pilot-free agriculture vehicles such as tractors, combines, seeding machines, and so on.
Clemens Daeschle, Andrej Bievetski, and Viacheslav Gershov has awarded the winners in the main stage of Startup Village supported by applause of the audience of not less than a thousand of people.
Photo: SAP Labs awards the winners in Startup Village:
“That’s the end”, - one might think. I say: “No, it’s not the end. It’s just one more, another one final. And it’s a starting point as well”.
Why? It is very simple. We continue working with Skolkovo to growand develop the local ecosystem of innovation, the IT and non-IT industries in Russia, the economy of this country, and as a consequence the better market for SAP products, solutions, and technologies. Partners are the key element in success of an IT company, and IT developer companies, so called ISV’s are the key for success of technological platform vendor. No partner ecosystem no the platform. We have got contacts of many interesting startups and agreed with Skolkovo on a number of future promising activities. So, it will be a lot of follow-up work, and I hope we will have more co-innovation projects with Skolkovo startups than we already have today.
Startup Village is a grand project not only for Skolkovo, but also for us, partners and sponsors. We started preparation some months before. I believe, we also won this Startup Village, the third consequent year. It is the success of all the team I had to work with; and I want to tell a warm Thank you very much to all the team and to each one personally:
- Andrej Bievetski, SAP Labs MD, the sponsor of our team as well as all Labs activities within ecosystem of innovations, panel discussion speaker on IoT, Press conference and personal interview speaker;
- Clemens Daesschle, VP, COO at SLN, MD at SAP Labs Paris for his and his team's international support of the event and our relationships with Skolkovo, for his expert speeches within IoT panel discussion and press conference
- Denis Savkin for his expertise and support one more panel discussion dedicated to IIoT with Industrial non-IT experts
- Anna Kopetskaya for entire marketing project management. Thanks to Anna we had an excellent booth and promoted our activities within Startup village
- Tatiana Zvereva and Ekaterina Zakharova for their work on PR of our activities re Startup Village, on press-conference and Labs MD interview preparation, and on two Press-releases
- Sergey Kuzin and Evgeniy Simonovich for their expertise and brilliant master class on IoT as well as for their work with conference attendees in Startup Village (Evgeniy, my special thanks for your great marketing idea!)
- Natalia Ivanova for her organizational support and idea to have a medical chair at the booth
- Nikita Rodionov, Oleg Marochkin, and Elena Komarovskaya for their work at the booth despite caprices of the weather and sometimes irrelevant audience
I also want to say thank to all our colleagues from SAP Labs and SAP CIS who supported us in Startup Village and communicated with startups and corporations, actual and potential customers and clients. I hope, it will help both Labs and Market Unit to better develop SAP business in Russia.I will be happy to get feedback from everybody.
Viacheslav Gershov,
Business Development Director at SAP Labs - CIS
List of SAP attendees:
- Clemens Daeschle
- Andrej Bievetski
- Viacheslav Gershov
- Sergey Kuzin
- Denis Savkin
- Ekaterina Zakharova
- Patrick Grofig
- Nadezhda Moreva
- Natalia Ivanova
- Anna Kopetskaya
- Evgeniy Simonovich
- Aleksey Burov
- Alexander Akimenkov
- Nikolay Antimonov
- Andrey Seslavin
- Nikita Rodionov
- Alexander Bolgarin
- Oleg Marochkin
- Elena Komarovskaya
- Stanislav Kurlyuk
- SAP Managed Tags: