The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts hosted the second part of the Russian-French Trianon Startups Forum, where 30 French startups met the leading Russian companies.
The main goals of this business event were creative and dynamic synthesis and experience exchange between the two countries' representatives as well as building firm grounds for future cooperation.

The Russian side was presented by such giants as Rostec (the State Corporation for Assistance to Development, Production and Export of Advanced Technology Industrial Products), VTB bank, Nornickel (the world's largest nickel and palladium producer) and RZHD (Russian Railways).
 
Almost a third of French startups were representing innovative companies related to "green" technologies. This was surely not a coincidence, considering that the hot topic of The Trianon Dialogue in 2020 was "Climate and Environment."
 
This was the second meeting as a part of the Russian-French cooperation project. The first time it was held at the Palace of Versailles in France, where Russian startups had a wonderful chance to present their projects to leading French companies, such as Air France, Total, Renault, Orange and many more. Two hundred and ninety meetings were conducted, and 15 agreements were signed by the end of that business event.
 
The Trianon Startups forum was organized with the support of the French-Russian Chamber of Commerce, Association of French Foreign Trade Advisers and La French Tech. Furthermore, the project is the winner of the French Tech Foundation, which helps French startups reach new markets.
 
The president of Nornickel and the member of the Coordination Board of The Trianon Dialogue - Vladimir Potanin - stated in his introduction speech at the forum, "Russian and global companies continue to focus on innovations that are based on digital technologies and this trend keeps increasing. We can see an international exchange of intellectual products all over the world and therefore such initiatives like the Trianon Startups are very timely. I hope that Nornickel's experts will find interesting and useful ideas and concepts among the French startups. I also hope that Nornickel will come up with its own, newly developed project in the next year when Russian startups will present their concepts in France. To keep up to our consistently high performance level and success, Nornickel does not only apply innovations and technologies developed by other companies but also develops and experiments with its own. We are open to share our experience and findings. "
 
Currently Nornickel implements a program of increased operational effectiveness with the use of modern information technologies and by applying the instruments of the "Industry 4.0" technology for resolving the most complex tasks.
 
For instance, the company develops drones (or UAVs - unmanned aerial vehicles) for use in mines, organizes unmanned production and uses the industrial "Internet of Things". Additionally, to reduce the physical efforts of staff, the company tests exoskeletons for further application at the plants. Also, together with SAP Nornickel aims to distribute the tested and ready-to-use solutions at its Russian facilities and abroad.