Innovation Workshop is a unique month-long "boothcamp"-style course that unites the entire Skoltech incoming class with faculty and esteemed invited mentors to create a foundational experience in Entrepreneurship and Innovation (E&I) for all, as well as to instill a positive "can-do" teamwork attitude in the culture of the student cohort. Students engage in experiential project-based and inquiry-based learning to live through the entire technology innovation "cycle", progressing from idea to product/prototype. This work is performed in cross-disciplinary teams that create real life experience of complex innovation project.
by Skoltech
The course was created in 2011 when Skoltech was launched together with MIT
eng
Fully in English (as well as all study process at Skoltech)
09/2023
The course will take place throughout September 2023
done by CEI
CEI is a indispensable department of the Skoltech, operating as the Institute's internal division, fostering links between entrepreneurship and innovation.
400 / 50/ 100
This is the project of fantastic scale: 490+ students selected from 15K applications to be enrolled at Skoltech, 50+ globally renowned experts as mentors and lecturers, more than 100 Skoltech staff and Faculty involved
The course is less about knowledge and more about developing skills and attitudes necessary to lead successful life in innovation.
Innovation Workshop puts together scientific, technological, social, and economical aspects of innovation in an intense hands-on setting. IW opens with intensive practical work during uniquely designed "Quick Success" lab works proving that technology innovation can be done in five hours of diligent focused effort. In 2018, the most popular Quick Success classes put students into Arduino programming of the self-launched rockets, PCR study of paternity of anonymous donors, creating Stirling engine powered by the cup of hot coffee, and, of course, diverse applications of 3D printing.
student
projects
projects
Importantly, IW is not a business accelerator or a business plan competition. Some student projects may remain very early-stage and even immature. The other student projects may become developed enough to be continued beyond IW into the student Skoltech tenure. The success of the IW project is measured in academic terms of diligently developing the projects along the three pillars of innovation that are taught at IW: Impact (a.k.a. End User Need), Solution Prototype (provided and validated by good science), and (End User Delivery (a.k.a. Business Model).
Examples of such projects are: programmed robot for treating autistic children, developed sound detection system for unmanned aerial rescue vehicles, assembled electronic nose for industrial safety use, synthesized durable novel materials for industrial engines, programmed neural networks for e-commerce, and employed laser detector to enhance road surface maintenance. The superb group of mentors from Universität Innsbruck awarded the latter team with the free tour to Skinnovation Conference in Austria in February 2019.
Examples of such projects are: programmed robot for treating autistic children, developed sound detection system for unmanned aerial rescue vehicles, assembled electronic nose for industrial safety use, synthesized durable novel materials for industrial engines, programmed neural networks for e-commerce, and employed laser detector to enhance road surface maintenance. The superb group of mentors from Universität Innsbruck awarded the latter team with the free tour to Skinnovation Conference in Austria in February 2019.
The only way to fail in the Innovation Workshop, as well as in life in general, is to give up or to free ride. Any other route along the three pillars is success in the area chosen by the student. Students are free to choose any project and encouraged to reshape and even restart their projects as they find appropriate. There are no project failures in IW, only character and experience failures. Skoltech teaches to be productively wrong and strickingly right.
Experts
Invited mentors for the Innovation Workshop are experts with years of experience in industry and academia, sharing their knowledge to help Skoltech's students advance in their chosen career fields.
Dmitry Kulish
Professor of Practice / Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation / Course Lead Instructor and Director of Innovation Workshop at Skoltech
Maxim Kiselev
Professor of Practice, Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation/ Course Instructor of Innovation Workshop at Skoltech
Alexey Nikolaev
Professor of Practice, Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation / Course Instructor of Innovation Workshop at Skoltech
Pavel Dorozhkin
Professor of Practice, Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation / Course Instructor of Innovation Workshop at Skoltech
Alexander Chekanov
Head of Start-UPs Incubation Programs / Course Instructor of Innovation Workshop at Skoltech
Dmitry Kulish
Professor of Practice, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation/ Course Lead Instructor and Director of Innovation Workshop at Skoltech
Elena Sjödin
Elena is CEO and Co-founder of Robot Minds which helps companies to navigate the world of service and social robots and support organizations throughout the entire process, from concept creation, technology evaluation to pilot projects, implementation, and technology adoption. She is also a board member in two European companies working with VR and education and advising several start-ups. Elena has a long and successful career behind her, working with international relations, product development, innovations, change management, and later entrepreneurship. She has considerable expertise in growth tactics and international expansion, identifying new market opportunities, developing new product solutions and go–to–market strategies, and helping companies to move from a start-up phase to growing and scaling.
Roman Leonov
Roman is Deputy Director of Business Development at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Skoltech. He specializes in innovation management, entrepreneurship, sales, marketing, finance, M&A. Roman's primary focus is on startup development management that includes implementation of work planning at startups and interaction with members of startup teams on the development and promotion of Skoltech startups. Also, he ensures that interaction between project teams, startups, and other Skoltech employees is professional and productive. Roman develops and implements joint startup-support programs and negotiates with other organizations when necessary. He serves as a developer of the concept of an early-stage financing fund with the possibility of accelerating Skoltech deep-tech projects. In the past, Roman worked for Skoltech innovation management where he managed pulp and paper industry, construction, private equity, sales and marketing, wholesale, and production.
Victoria Imanova
Victoria is Knowledge Transfer Manager at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Skoltech. Victoria is responsible for the implementation of the full business process cycle of the Knowledge Transfer Office (KTO) functions, IP management, and technology commercialization. She also participated in developing a strategic action plan of KTO for the next 3 years. Prior to Victoria's current position at KTO, she handled coordination duties related to startup & spinoff creation; introduced a project coordination process that was approved by the top management and taken as a standard inside the center. She also managed Skoltech's largest month-long intensive educational course for 400+ first-year master students. In the past, Victoria worked for Skoltech Innovation Management where she showed her expertise in multinational financial management and accounting.
Mikhail Akimov
Mikhail is the Head of Investment Analysis at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Skoltech. He is responsible for strategic analysis and business development planning, cooperation origination with industrial, technological, and financial partners (venture capital investors), infrastructure centers of the National Technological Initiative (NTI) markets, and Russian Federation Development Institutes. With more than 25 years of professional experience with a wide range of global and Russian private and institutional investors, industrial companies, and governmental institutions, Mikhail has developed excellent expertise in investment and innovation management. His past professional experience includes working for PSC MMK, Alfa Group, Phosagro Group, TN Capital & Rybakov Foundation, investment and export support agency of the Ministry for the Development of the Russian far east and Arctic, private consulting companies, and family offices.
Elena Sokolova
Elena is the Manager for Innovations Ecosystem Development at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Skoltech. She has 20+ years of business experience with excellent expertise in business development, marketing strategy & execution, corporate innovation, startups, and complex research. Besides, Elena is a TEDx speaker as well as a member of international working groups on learning ecosystems, a digital anthropologist, and an international member of AAA/SMA. Her experience includes over 7 years of consulting and mentoring. In the past, Elena served as the Head of Marketing at Megalabs and worked for the innovation hub of MegaFon with a vast portfolio of products, B2B/ B2C; Coca-cola TM brand, promo, and assets marketing.
Dmitry Piradov
Dmitry Piradov is Partnerships Director at Skoltech dealing with fundraising, bridging start-ups with business angels, venture and investment funds. Dmitry has extensive work experience in consulting business dealing with the major companies in oil, gas, metalworking, machine-building industries. Thanks to his expertise a substantial number of business processes have been optimized within the limited time frames. In addition to that, Dmitry is experienced in dealing with the retail business. In the past, he was the head of corporate sales at the leading cosmetic chain L'etoile in Russia & CIS. Dmitry has a wide network of business connections with top decision-making people from the medical (clinical) business sphere and already helped a number of Skolkovo startups to run successful pilot projects with the largest medical clinics. Besides, he also has a wide network of investors & consultants in Russia, Europe, the USA, and Asia.
Adrian Leemhuis
Adrian Leemhuis is an investment manager with over 26 years of experience in the UK and Canada. For the past 16 years, he has been the Investment Manager and Director for International Financial Capital Limited (IFCL), a company that trades in securities, debt instruments, currencies, commodities, and derivatives. IFCL uses proprietary technical and fundamental analysis to identify profitable trades which include both long and short positions. Adrian commenced his career at Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) in London (1992), where he traded fixed income sovereign and corporate bonds ranging from AAA to BBB. After UBS, Adrian joined the Industrial Bank of Japan (IBJ) London (1997). At IBJ, Adrian traded high-yield credit names in both fixed and floating formats. Adrian was instrumental in setting up IBJ's credit derivative trading capabilities. Thereafter, Adrian traded the credit derivative book at IBJ.
Matt Guiger
Matt is the CEO at InstaMarkt, a geolocation-based delivery platform with last-mile fulfillment, development of delivery/takeout E-Commerce/payment platforms for customers, drivers, and vendors. His primary focus is in working with service providers, systems integrations, and channel | reseller development. He has vast operational expertise includes SAAS, product rollouts, UI/UX prototyping, positioning, strategic planning, M&A, RFP/RFQ's. Matt's marketplace model payout expertise is in providing multi-stakeholder payouts in the supply chain (distributor, retail), food & beverage vendors, and SMB customers.
Alexy Khrabrov
Alexy is Technical Ecosystem Development Lead at IBM Quantum. Previously he was a General Manager of the Reactive Foundation (at Linux Foundation), a Chief Community Officer of the Trusted IoT Alliance, a Chief Scientist at Nitro, and a Founder/Research Engineer/Director of Analytics at various internet companies including Amazon. Some of his handles are @chiefscientist on Twitter, chiefscientist on LinkedIn; more handles are at about.me/khrabrov. Alexy used to move between industry and academia until he finished his Ph.D. from UPenn and moved to the startup capital of the world, San Francisco, to join, found, lead, and advise numerous startups and teams at leading companies..
Julian Schubert
Julian is a Program Manager at APTIV, Munich, Germany. He is responsible for the APTIV ADCAM program and leads active safety and autonomous driving functions from development to series production (the first application for a German Premium OEM in FY21 with more than 400 people in the program and >$500Mn in revenue). He is also a business development specialist focusing on adding value by combining existing business with new technology. Julian's experience ranges across multiple industries, including Aerospace, Aviation, Automotive, White Goods, and more. He likes to be in the driver's seat bringing innovation to life, be in his own ventures or inside established companies.
Anton Bannov
Anton is the Head of the Development of Expert Network and Partnerships at Severstal. He is in charge of developing the methodology of expert network with consultants from McKinsey and Co. In the past, he worked in different leading roles for several projects related to operational excellence, development of internal and external expert networks at Severstal. Anton's professional experience includes working for several international companies, including McKinsey and KPMG.
Stefano Antonetti
Stefano holds a Master's degree in Space Engineering in a collaboration between the University of Rome "La Sapienza" and the Delft University of Technology. He has worked as Space System Engineer in Paris for 7 years, focusing on feasibility studies for space exploration and the environmental impact of space activities. In 2014 he came back to Italy and joined D-Orbit as Program Manager for most of the activities done in collaboration with the European Space Agency. Now, Stefano is in charge of the Business Development of the D-Orbit Group, drawing the future of space transportation and logistics.
Brandan Quigley
Brendan is a former hedge fund currency trader, and macroeconomic investment analyst who has worked alongside some of the most creative financial minds in Canada. Now leading business development for the largest international renewable energy company in the Canadian province of Alberta, he oversees new commercial and industrial client accounts and negotiates dozens of multimillion dollar retail energy deals annually. An original thinker and business transition expert, Brendan works with senior management to develop high-energy consultative sales teams, while simultaneously creating custom financial and operational research to help clients manage and deliver on their global growth, sustainability and ESG targets. Through over 20 years of entrepreneurship and outdoor activity, including leading ski mountaineering ascents in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, Brendan has gained great insight into the inner workings of leadership and high-performance teams.
Fedor Myagkov
Fedor is an Investment Analyst in the private equity arm of United Financial Group (UFG), one of the oldest private equity firms in Russia. Before UFG, Fedor was a member of the Russian national downhill ski team, ultimately winning the Russian national championship in 2016, he was also one of the top juniors in the world during his career. Fedor graduated from the Ivy League University, Dartmouth College, with honors in Computer Science and Economics. He also participated in the Skoltech Innovation Workshop in 2019 where he found his passion for entrepreneurship.
Ekaterina Ledokol
Ekaterina is a venture investor, founder of the Ledokol club, the Ledokol accelerator and investment fund. Since 2020, she has been a member of the organizing committee of "Challenge Moscow", a stage of the world triathlon series. Since 2019, she has been a member of the Coordinating Council of the Park of Active Molecules (PAM). Since 2018, she has been an expert at the Open Innovations Forum in Skolkovo. From 2016 to the present, Ekaterina organizes business events within the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) and the Russian Internet Forum (RIF) for large companies and teams of governors. Ekaterina was one of the first persons in Russia to win cases in the Moscow Arbitration Court related to the transfer of 9.4 hectares of land of JSC "Trekhgornaya Manufactory", one of the most valuable assets of the capital, located between the White House and the World Trade Center, to the private ownership. Since 2015, she has been actively involved in the venture capital industry, constantly cooperates with Skolkovo and NTI. Invests in media, IT, medicine, biopharmaceuticals, cybersecurity.
Sofia Yartseva
Sofia is leading AstraZeneca's Health Innovation Hub in Moscow, which is a part of A.Catalyst Network – a structure within AstraZeneca that engages with start-ups, innovation ecosystems, and big companies alike to advance equitable access to healthcare and accelerate better outcomes for patients through innovation and partnerships. As part of her role, Sofia is leading iLab – a unique Healthcare Innovations Laboratory, which is the next-level acceleration program for Digital Health start-ups, built around the principles of patient-centricity, design thinking, and mentorship. Before AstraZeneca Sofia led Digital Health projects at Medsi Group, evaluating investment opportunities in a pharma/biotech-oriented VC fund Primer Capital and was involved in several drug development and Digital Health projects.
Dina Nasyrova
Dina is Project Manager at EPAM Systems. She has over 15 years of experience in global software development project management. Dina managed projects in logistics, retail, digital media, and HR areas. She can help to lead a project from planning to closing out with the use of the best management practices.
Aleksei Kadeishvili
Aleksei is Director of Industry Video Application Laboratory, Huawei Technologies Co. In the past he was the Co-founder and CTO of Vocord, a leading Russian commuter vision developer. Aleksei took part in a series of publications related to biometrics and computer vision technologies. Also, he has more than a dozen patents registered under his name.
Johann Füller
Prof. Dr. Johann Füller took office at the University of Innsbruck's faculty for Business Administration, where he holds the recently founded chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Department of Strategic Management, Marketing and Tourism. Since his habilitation on „Communities as a Source of Innovation – Towards a Theory of Innovation and Virtual Co-Creation Communities. Innovation 2.0 – From Fortified Castles to Open Bazars" he has been a senior lecturer of Marketing at the Innsbruck University School of Management. He is a Fellow at the NASA Tournament Lab-Research at Harvard University and CEO of Hyve AG, an innovation and community company. In line with his research focus, he regularly gives guest lectures about co-creation, online branding, creative consumer behavior, online marketing, open innovation, and the utilization of online communities. From 2008-2010, Johann was a visiting scholar and research affiliate at MIT Sloan School of Management. Johann habilitated in business administration at the Innsbruck University. He received his Ph.D. in marketing with distinction about "Community Based Innovations – Virtual Integration of Online Consumer Groups into New Product Development".
Alessandro Golkar
Alessandro is Associate Professor and Technology Development Director at Skoltech. From 2017 to 2019, he served as Vice President of Concurrent Engineering, a member of the Leadership Team of Technology Planning and Roadmapping at the Airbus Corporate Technology Office (CTO) in France. Before Airbus, he served as the Interim Director of the Skoltech Space Center. His research looks at new ways for looking at complex systems architecting problems and developing research and demonstrators of novel spacecraft technology. Alessandro is the author of 102 publications, including 29 peer-reviewed journal papers. He is Associate Editor of the IEEE Journal on Miniaturization for Air and Space Systems, Associate Editor of the INCOSE Systems Engineering journal. He is a reviewer for journals including the AIAA Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, AIAA Journal of Aerospace Information Systems, Acta Astronautica, SAGE Concurrent Engineering, INCOSE Systems Engineering, and the IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems. He is actively involved as a member of the board of advisors and early-stage investors in technology startups.
Dmitry Kulish
Dmitry is Professor of Practice at Skoltech's Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, where he teaches the Skoltech Startup Funnel courses, as well as mentors and develops Skoltech and Skolkovo startups in the pharmaceutics, genomics, and digital health sectors. In 2020-21 Dmitry has been awarded the title of "Best Professor" and became the top performer in the metric of Skoltech-affiliated startups. For over 30 years Dmitry has been managing and leading Russian and international teams with emphasis on pharmaceutical innovation, product development, and manufacturing. He served at top executive positions at prominent Russian pharmaceutical companies, such as R-Pharm, Nanolek, Binnopharm, and various biotech start-ups. After completing a corporate career in 2014, Dmitry established consultancy "DrugDevelopment.Ru" that he keeps running successfully to this day. The two most prominent projects of 2020-2021 were related to the global development of the vaccines "Sputnik-V" and "Kovivak" which made Dmitry the top-cited expert in the topics of COVID vaccine and treatment development.
Pavel Dorozhkin
Pavel is Professor of Practice at Skoltech and Deputy Head of Quantum Communications department at Russian Railways. He is in charge of the R&D and technology development within the Russian National Roadmap on quantum communications lead by Russian Railways. At Skoltech he is focused on teaching technological innovations and supporting student startup teams. Earlier Pavel was a deputy head of Industrial Programs at Skoltech – coordinating Skoltech activities with industrial and governmental partners. He worked at NT-MDT (a leading Russian company manufacturing and exporting scientific equipment) as head of the Applications and Product Management. His team successfully developed and commercialized unique equipment and technology for super-resolution optical microscopy with the use of the AFM probe for light localization – with more than $10 million annual export sales worldwide. Pavel is a laureate of the International Prize in Nanotechnology and several other awards for applied R&D.
Alexander Chekanov
Alexander is an Innovation & Platforms' Ecosystem Strategist, with a finance and strategy background in FMCG, tech, and entertainment industries. Beyond providing consulting guidance to practitioners and authoring conference papers and publications, Alexander's research lines include piracy of digital goods, strategic competition in platform ecosystems, product release and partnerships in platform environments, innovation, the transformation of platform-based industries, creation of value through artificial intelligence. Alexander has lectured at ESADE Business School in the undergraduate, master's and executive education programs. As a project manager, he also conceptualized, designed, and supervised the development of a video game for a European Commission Project in the context of the "Lifelong Learning Program". Prior to that, Alexander funded in 2011 an online music service achieving 3000 users and a 100.000 euros valuation in six months, and in 2011 was one of the finalists in the "Barcelona Entrepreneurs' Capital Award" with one of his start-up initiatives.
Maxim Kiselev
Maxim is Professor of Practice in the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Skoltech. He also serves as a CEO at the Human Capital Development Foundation under the Government of Moscow. For about twelve years he remains a managing partner of "MK Analytics-Consulting-Training," full-spectrum management and communications consulting company that he founded. His research interests are focused on leadership, organizational behavior, emotional intelligence, science, technology and society studies, crisis communications, psychological and sociocultural barriers to commercialization of innovative technologies, human response to disasters, roboethics. Maxim has served as Chief Business Development Officer at Technopark Skolkovo since July 2011, where he was in charge of the full spectrum of internal and external communications, marketing, national and international partnerships development, strategy, and system of services for startups. Maxim has been a professor at the Russian Presidential Academy for National Economy and Public Affairs since 1999, and a visiting professor at Moscow State Lomonosov University Higher School of Business.
Alexey Nikolaev
Alexey is Professor of Practice at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Skoltech. He also serves as an invited project mentor and industry expert for startups accelerators and other universities, including Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow State University, and Higher School of Economics, also in Moscow. Alexey has over 25 years of IT and SW development industry experience, working for such companies as Samsung Electronics, Intel Corporation, Align Technology. The focus of his work has been on Research and Development, Academic Relations, Startups Acceleration, Innovations and Entrepreneurship Education, Corporate Innovations fostering, and New Products Design among other areas. He is the author and lead instructor of a series of Skoltech entrepreneurship courses as well as the Coursera online course on new hi-tech products design and marketing. Through his work, Alexey brings to Academia practical expertise for new technical startups and products launch, industry-university-startups collaboration models, as well as the most recent technological and hi-tech markets trends.
Victroria Silchenko
Victoria Silchenko, Ph.D. is one of the leading alternative funding experts in the United States, an economist turned entrepreneur and adviser known for being at the forefront of next-generation impact-driven venture financing models in the new digital era. Recognized worldwide as the ambassador for entrepreneurship, she is a prominent voice in the global community and the bestselling author of "Raise and Rise: Funding Sources for Your Startup in the Era of Digital Transformation & Blockchain." Based in Los Angeles, she is the founder of Metropole Capital Group, creator of World Funding Summit, Visiting Professor at the School of Management at CLU (California Lutheran University), served a six-year term in LAVA (Los Angeles Venture Association), and is currently on the board of StockXchange. Previously, she worked at the Milken Institute, a leading economic think-tank founded by M. Milken; and conducted interdisciplinary research while working directly with Dr. Laffer, the "father" of supply-side economics & former advisor to President R. Reagan.
Lawrence Stein
L.Stein@skoltech.ru
Dmitry Kulish
D.Kulish@skoltech.ru
Adel Musina
A.Musina@skoltech.ru
Natalya Andreeva
N.Andreeva@skoltech.ru
Varvara Tsygankova
V.Tsygankova@skoltech.ru
Zarui Udumyan
Z.Udumyan@skoltech.ru
Julia Zatulo
J.Zatulo@skoltech.ru
Galina Isaykina
G.Isaykina@skoltech.ru
Arina Kholkina
A.Kholkina@skoltech.ru
сourse
objectives
objectives
For 30 days, we take 450+ masters & PhD students out of their comfort zone before they begin their traditional science studies
We drive the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation through an intensive hands-on program
We mix together students and global mentors to generate commercially viable ideas founded on solid science ideas
We drive the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation through an intensive hands-on program
We mix together students and global mentors to generate commercially viable ideas founded on solid science ideas
schedule
- I study Data Science and usually I think about programming opportunities when attend workshops but here at the Innovation Workshop they show us so many different opportunities and areas for development such as biology, space, robots, etc. and that makes me want to try myself in something new.Daria FrolovaStudent
- At the Innovation Workshop we work hard but this is the hard work to success. We start from the 1st week of the studies and the energy we get at the event keeps us up to the remaining 22 weeks of the program year in Russia.Oluwafemi OlalekeStudent
- This project helps students to understand how to work on team and project management, how to formulate ideas in such a way that they attract other partners to help students to develop their projects. Those are useful skills for the entire program at Skoltech.Kendrick WhiteMentor, 2021
- As mentors, it is very important for us to know our students' backgrounds, who they are, how they behave and tackle problems. Then, at the workshop, we put everything back together into the business perspective and go to a more entrepreneurial side.Maximilian RappMentor, 2021