Small Business Projects Defended at ASU

A number of business projects have been defended at Astrakhan State University on the base of the Fund for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises. The event has been held as a part of the Fund’s START Program.

This program aims to assist innovators who strive to develop and introduce production of new goods, products, technologies, or services by applying the results of their own researches and technological innovations, which are at the initial stage of their development and which have a viable potential for their further commercialization. First and foremost, the START Program aims at active researchers, who wish to set up a sustainable business on the base of their innovative ideas.

The research and technological level of their developments is the decisive criterion for their assessments, as well as research staff’s qualifications and prospects of products commercialization. The START Program finances viable projects for three years: 1m Russian rubles during the 1st year; 2m and 3m RUR during the 2nd and the 3rd years respectively. This program spans the following areas: information technologies, medicine of the future, modern materials and technologies to manufacture them, devices and hardware, and biotechnologies.

About 30 applications have been submitted on behalf of Astrakhan Region; 9 of them have been made up by small enterprises established by staff of Astrakhan State University. Another series of project defenses has been finished today; it has been held as a video conference in biotechnologies. Among the participants from ASU, there was a team of researchers working with the Astbio Enterprise (which operates at ASU). Its reps (Adelya Baymukhambetova, Director, and Damelya Magzanova, Research Supervisor) have given their report “Development of Phytostimulating Fertilizer “Baktosoil” for Agricultural Crops Based on Bacillus Bacteria”.

Russian original information and photo source: Anna Berstneva (the Press Service of ASU)

Translated by E.I. Glinchevskiy (the Center of Translation Studies & Conference Interpreting “ASTLINK” of ASU)