IT-Park, the technopark launched in 2009 in Tartartan’s capital city of Kazan, has opened a new 23,000 sq. meter branch in Naberezhnye Chelny, the second largest city in this autonomous republic of the Russian Federation.
Rustam Minnikhanov, the president of Tatarstan, and Nikolai Nikiforov, the Russian Minister of Telecommunications and Mass Media, attended the opening ceremony on August 25.
“This is the best technopark in the country,” said Nikiforov, who had served as Tatarstan’s Minister of Informatization and Telecommunications until recently. “The resident companies of this technopark have all they need to conquer the world,” he added.
Construction costs for the new branch amounted to 1.38 billion rubles, approximately $43 million, financed equally by the federal and local government, according to IT-Park.
The same day, the Naberezhnye Chelny technopark business incubator selected its twenty first startups. The selected projects include: ‘cloud’ services for logistics and taxi stations ; online services for individual housing construction, freight hauling and SME bookkeeping ; and nonlinear interactive games.
An international educational center may also be created in the technopark, said Minnikhanov. Talks about a potential partnership are being held with Carnegie Mellon University.
In a separate move, the Tatarstan authorities are also building a $315 million IT village outside Kazan to provide housing and business opportunities for up to 50,000 IT professionals and their families.
