GS Group expert unveiled the prospects of IoT in Russia at the media briefing by the Skolkovo Foundation

On October 21, 2014 Sergey Filimonov, Head of GS Venture, the GS Group corporate venture fund, spoke at the media briefing in support of the All-Russian contest "The Internet of things–IT Challenge" established by the Skolkovo Foundation. Representatives of Intel, Cisco, Softline and other companies also spoke at the event. The discussion concerned the current trends and forecasts of the Internet of Things market across the globe.

The first All-Russian contest "The Internet of things–IT Challenge" is arranged by the Skolkovo Foundation to establish conditions providing for direct communication among innovators and investors. Contestants include authors of technological startups, representatives of small and medium-sized engineering companies and scientific community. The GS Group holding company is one of the key contest partners.

Media briefing in support of the Skolkovo Foundation contest was held in the Digital October center, Moscow, and brought together around 30 participants. Sergey Filimonov, Head of GS Venture, focused his speech on the prospects for the development of Internet of Things (IoT) in Russia. The speaker pointed out that present-day developments are distinguished by the high cost and are basically designed for the Western target audience. In the meantime, the GS Venture corporate venture fund is seeking for and investing in startups aimed at developing the mass and affordable products for the Russian consumers. GS Group is willing to render not only financial support for the authors of promising projects in the field of IoT, but also to provide the material and technical base along with production base, as well as assistance of R&D department specialists of the innovation cluster Technopolis GS in enhancement and development of the idea.

"GS Group is ready to support startups not only by means of the GS Venture fund. We can lend assistance in the product development, production and marketing. And we believe that this product will be competitive in the global market, along with the other GS Group products," commented Sergey Filimonov, Head of GS Venture.

GS Venture representative is involved in the judging panel in the three categories which are of priority for the holding company: IoT solutions for Smart Home, Smart City, and Smart Grid; solutions for wearable electronics and in digital production. In addition, GS Group established two special prizes: the author of the best project will be awarded the valuable prize worth 75 thousand rubles, and the team that will present the most challenging development in the field of portable rapid-response analyzers will get valuable prize in the amount of 175 thousand rubles.