We continue to review interesting Science & Tech Parks in Russia and Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Technology Park – TechnoPort is a science and business centre which provides environment and facilities to innovative companies. It is still under construction and definition and the plan is to open it officially in 2015.

The park is located just 6 km from the city center of the capitol Warsaw. The creation of the Warsaw Technology Park was initiated in 2005 by the capital authorities and the Ministry of Science and Information Technology and their goal is to stimulate the economic development and business environment in the region and favourite the transfer of technologies from the science field to the industry.

Once completed, the companies and entreprenuers will have access to the shared services like administration, social equipment, advisory and consulting support, but also using the technical infrastructure and modern laboratories.

The focus in on several sectors, from IT to nanotechnologies, from renewable energy to logistics.

On the 19th of December a new free Iphone application called AlterGeo was launched. This application allows you to define your position on a map and shows all the places you might need, for example banks, shops and cafes. Like in any other network, users can write opinions about places they visit, find each other and get new acquaintances. The special «mark» function allows you to inform others, where are you at the moment. It is a kind of geographical status.

There are lots of projects with same idea in Russian web, like social networks Mirtesen.ru and iMobbit, that provide the same opportunities, but only AlterGeo allows to watch through camera and see all marks, friends and places that are situated near you.

Denis Alaev, the co-founder, says that they will overcome their competitors by developing applications for Android, Nokia N-Series, WM 6.1. Plans for the first year are to get more then 1 million users and push application in Europe.

AlterGeo was developed by Russian startup Wi2Geo.

We want to post about an interesting event which will be held in Kiev, Ukraine, in some months. The Investor’s Day Central and Eastern Europe is the second in such format, but this year it will be organized and managed in co-operation with BlogCampCEE, to give participants even more networking opportunities.

The event is divided into 2 days program including:
exhibition – startups can present themselves to investors;
conference – panel discussions, keynotes etc.;
kick-off party, which currently is “top secret”.

The IDСEE will take place on March 13-14 is intended for startups, entrepreneurs, angel investors and venture capitalists.

Cheap-and-Daily, already covered by us last month, is web-shop that offers each day one item at the lowest possible price in limited quantities. It was launched on the 15th of December and yesterday appreared the first copy – onedayshop.ru. It has the same business model as CnD as well as the look.

I was interested to know if the Woot.com business model actually works in Russia and I contacted CnD CEO Elena Masolova. By her words, they are selling unpredictable amount of items per day. If they manage to target the current audience of CnD, they minimum can sell 30 items and up to 120. Profit is 5-30 dollars per each sale. So the business model actually works, though CnD is far from the “Woot” success.

Talky 3D is an instant messenger developed in Ukraine. The program offers several services like the possibility to communicate with multiple contacts at the same time, start conferences, share files during a call, send SMS to Ukrainian mobile numbers, listen radio from your PC, internet browser of mobile phone.

Talky 3D can be run with the operating system Microsoft Windows, in web browser or in mobile phone. The interface is quite friendly and the program is easy to download. The last released version is about 17.6 MB. It is not much but it’s not so fast during the downloading.

In fact, Talky 3D is one of the projects managed and developed by GG Network Ukraine, a company controlled by the Polish GG Network, leader for Internet projects in Poland. It connects all Ukranian GG’s products, such as radio, flash games, forums, auctions, blog platform Internet Jockey or IJ (sounds like LJ – Livejournal.com), etc. into one powerful network.

Previously the same was done by Qip.ru which connects large Russian Internet projects such as Smotri.com, Photofile.ru, Memori.ru, Pochta.ru, Loveplanet.ru, Anekdot.ru etc. Qip.ru is controlled by RBC.

GG Network Ukraine was founded at the end of 2008 in order to develop GG Network for the East European market.

Founded in the 2002, the RTTN is an association of 52 Russian innovation and scientific centers. Its main mission is to stimulate the circulation, sharing and transfer of technology for implementation of innovative projects. The transfer of technology and knowledge from the science field to the industry and between industries. Moreover, the RTTN plays a key role in helping innovative companies to commercialize their products.

Each RTTN member operates in a network structure and has close relationships with Russian federal, regional and local entities but also with foreign organizations. Actually, the RTTN has established important contacts and cooperation with the EU IRC.

The RTTN is coordinated by the Obninsk Centre for Science and Technologies, based in the Russian region of Kaluga. The current Director is Mr. Gennady Pilnov.

Here it is a scheme of how the RTTN works.

Business incubator HSE-inc , founded by the Higher School of Economics announced the second “Student startup of ther year” award. The winner will get honor, press coverage and $ 5000 to invest in Google Adwords account. Every successful startup can take part and try to win the following nominations:

1. Best product and service
2. Best technology
3. Best business model
4. Best marketing campaign
5. Best startup

The ceremony will be held in Moscow on the 29th of January.

The Higher School of Economics or HSE is the first university that started to support startups in Russia in big scale by organizing contests, conferences, free seminars and launching incubator.