Summer: It’s the hot, slow season.  A time when droves of students focus mostly on zoning out. Nothing wrong with a bit of daydreaming, but this summer the new cohort of Skoltech MSc students will be busy directing their attention – on innovation. Postgrads will kick off their studies on July 23^rd with an intensive Innovation Workshop. For the first time, the event will be hosted in Moscow.

Each academic year Skoltech welcomes its new  group of Biomed, IT and Energy tracks’ postgrads with a four-week course, which aims to create a foundational experience in entrepreneurship and innovation, to empower participants to identify and solve real–world problems with technology, and to instill an entrepreneurial “can–do” attitude. Thus, the workshop teaches and reinforces the flexibility and creativity required for a successful innovator.

Dr. Ilia Dubinsky, Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Skoltech, the Workshop’s director and designer, will challenge more than 100 participants with multiple non-standard tasks. The workshop will feature lectures on technology and its impact, hands-on projects, leadership, negotiation and presentation experiences, company visits, and social events. It will culminate on August 15th with innovation prototypes presentations by the students.

* The Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CEI) aims to make Skoltech an engine of economic growth by rapidly implementing ideas to create impact, by engaging Skoltech students and faculty in E&I (entrepreneurship and innovation), and by accelerating research outcomes toward commercialization and broader social impact. Developed through the partnership between Skoltech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the center establishes connections between students, researchers, and business; integrates E&I into Skoltech education and research pathways through the curriculum and entrepreneurial programs; conducts research into management style and practices of E&I in the Russian Federation; supports innovation through integrated commercialization services.

* The Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) is a private graduate research university in Skolkovo, Russia, a suburb of Moscow. Established in 2011 in collaboration with MIT, Skoltech educates global leaders in innovation, advances scientific knowledge, and fosters new technologies to address critical issues facing Russia and the world. Applying international research and educational models, the university integrates the best Russian scientific traditions with twenty-first century entrepreneurship and innovation.