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Innopolis goes to the East
RUS
20.07.2023

Innopolis goes to the East

Innopolis goes to the East

This is the third event organized by the Center as part of its "Eastern track", i.e. workshops and seminars dedicated to helping IT business to find a way to the heart of an Asian user.

As in previous times, participants of the discussion were: Mikhail Trinoga, e-legion (Russian software company) development manager, Rumiya Rakhimova, CITIC Telecom CPC business development director, Anastasia Valova, Executive Partner of SinoRuss Consulting. The discussion was moderated by Vadim Glushchenko, Director of the Center.

During the discussion, Mikhail Trinoga emphasized that it was important for companies to correctly position themselves in the market, i.e. to select the right buyer, since not everything was as obvious as it seemed in China. He also pointed out great opportunities of the Celestial market for mobile app developers because of billion mobile users in China. Currently, Western companies are leaving China for whatever reason, so it can help our companies export their own (and for the Chinese, this is similar to European) IT services. Moreover, the industry of mobile developers in the neighboring country is emerging, so it provides an opportunity to try yourself in it.

Rumiya Rakhimova drew attention to the Russian export ICT-potential. Despite the fact that overseas (or foreign) sales of Russian software companies decreased by 27% last year due to sanctions imposed by unfriendly countries, meanwhile, exports of domestic software to friendly countries increased by 10% and is likely to double in 2023. Revenue of the local market grew by 37%. Like the previous speaker, she, however, warned Russian IT-companies against rapid decisions: before entering the Chinese market, it should be carefully analyzed including such aspects as, for example, Internet censorship and rules for storing personal data.

Anastasia Valova spoke about legal details of working with China. For example, there is the “chabuduo” principle, which means "close enough" and is very popular in China. “To get what you want, you need to clearly explain a request, because otherwise you can get something “close enough”, for example, a white vase with blue flowers, although you asked for a black vase with red ones, since details are not as important for the Chinese as we think,” she said. At the end, she reminded that one should carefully check drawings and contracts in order to be sure that you would get exactly what you wanted. 

After the discussion, the Center held separate meetings with managers of the Innopolis Special Economic Zone, as well as with the University itself. The parties agreed to continue developing cooperation in various spheres: from exporting Russian IT solutions to new markets in Asia up to the participation of Innopolis students in the Youth Internet Governance Forum (Youth RIGF).

“Innopolis projects can expand representation of the Russian expert community abroad, and we, as the Center for Global IT-Cooperation, are aiming to do it. Cooperation with such a technopolis also provides with exciting opportunities, primarily for the research and youth tracks of our organization. Among other things, IT startups of this special economic zone may be interesting to many Asian investors,” Vadim Glushchenko commented on the results of the meeting.