TOMSK, December 15. /TASS/. Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) will open Tomsk region’s first studio, where local university students can create and develop their own startups. The format and features of the studio will be discussed in December by more than 50 experts from the Big University – an association of local universities and research institutes, and by entrepreneurs, Director of the TPU School of Engineering Entrepreneurship Alexander Osadchenko told TASS.

"The format of startup studios is being successfully developed in the US and Europe, while in Russia startup studios are slowly starting to appear. There are several private startup studios and university startups are starting to open. This is a certain evolutionary stage in the development of technological entrepreneurship. The main task of startup studios is to speed up the development of technological startups by helping to assemble a team, to bring the product to a commercial result and enter markets. The task of the startup studio is to develop the startup in such a way that it can then be successfully sold," the agency's interlocutor said.

According to Osadchenko, the TPU-based startup studio will be the first university-based studio in the Tomsk region, with its opening planned for early 2022. The studio is needed for a new model of student education - the creation of their own entrepreneurial business within the walls of the university, not after graduation. The studio will work with startups created by student teams from various Tomsk universities.

"Today, the development of student technological entrepreneurship is one of the priority tasks of the Russian Federation’s government, which initiated a federal project called "The Platform for university technological entrepreneurship" that is supposed to increase the number of student startups to 30 thousand by 2030. The startup studio is one of the forms of support for student entrepreneurship," Osadchenko said.

The format of the studio will be approved on December 20-21 at a strategy workshop at TPU. More than 50 experts from Tomsk Polytechnic University and partner universities of the Big University – Tomsk State University, Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radio-electronics, Siberian State Medical University, Tomsk State University of Architecture and Construction - will take part in the two-day workshop. Representatives of Innopolis, technological businesses, development institutes, venture funds and investment companies will also attend. Among them are MTS, Rubius, Micran JSC, Broox business school for teenagers, IT-company INTEC, SmartLab community of investors and traders, and representatives of Tomsk special economic zone.

About Tomsk and technology exports

Tomsk may just be one of the world's largest university cities, an education and technology export center. To achieve this goal, all six universities of the city, as well as academic institutions, are integrated into a single "Big University". According to TSU Rector Eduard Galazhinsky, 100 thousand students will study at the Big University by 2030 and the total budget of all universities will reach 1.5-2 billion dollars - more than that of Moscow State University, Higher School of Economics and St. Petersburg State University.