On February 9, a pilot Startup Huddle was held on the platform of the MCCI.
The Startup Huddle (SH) is an international program, aimed at educating, developing and bringing entrepreneurial communities together. It has been implemented around the world since 2016. In Russia, its operator is the "Entrepreneurship Center” LLC, utilising an extensive partners’ network.
The Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry hosted this interesting innovative endeavor for the first time on its site.
This was the first time that the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry hosted this interesting and innovative event in this particular format.. Mr. Artyom Dalevich, the Vice-President of the MCCI, who supervises the issues of digitalization and innovative development, noted: "This is not the first time I have taken part in such pitch sessions, and I fell in love with this format. I very much hope that the members of the Chamber will also be interested in it, which will make it possible to get concrete results from the meeting today, and in the future, to make the platform of the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry a permanent venue for the Startup Huddle.
Mr. Denis Didkovsky, the General Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship LLC, described the structure of the event and called it a "one-day accelerator”. A pitch session is a short (up to 6 minutes) presentation by a budding entrepreneur or a team, in which they describe their business, outline the main problems and address their requests to the body of experts. After that, for 20 minutes experts, entrepreneurs and investors provide feedback and valuable advice on the next steps to be taken, offer solutions to problems and share their experiences.
At the pilot session, which took place in a mixed format (incorporating both offline and remote applications), four projects from different areas of business were presented. The online service, “Kolitka", performs screening and monitoring of side effects of medications. The “Street Adventure" project is a unique mobile application for urban quests, which does not require registration, allowing for up to 6 participants using one mobile device, which is able to perform interesting tasks that allow them to obtain pertinent information about the city where they find themselves at the moment.
Events travel service, the "iWeekender," which was started and began developing in the United States and is now expanding to Russian cities, facilitates attending an event of interest anywhere in the world and find interesting things to do close by to where one finds himself. The "LMS Skill-Branch”, is an online platform, offering distance learning and conferences with the highest degree of content protection from illegal duplication.
The experts, who took part in the pitch session, actively discussed the presented projects and gave many suggestions on business development, as well as suggested new directions for its implementation. In addition, in the course of networking, young entrepreneurs gained access not only to useful information and personal experience of respected colleagues, but also to new contacts, which will allow them to take their projects to a new stage of development.
In the opinion of all those present, the first experience was a turned out to be a success, and in the near future, the next pitch session in the Startup Huddle format will be held at the MCCI’s site. It is planned that it will be focused on a narrower area of business, for example, - tourism.