Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov visits the Venture Capital Fund in California and raises the issues of student exchange between Kazan universities and Stanford University

Starting his working visit to California, USA on Friday, November 19, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov visited one of the major venture funds New Enterprise Associates and Stanford University. Rustam Minnikhanov’s visit to the Silicon Valley is aimed to get acquainted with high-tech venture companies and discuss cooperation opportunities. The head of the republic is accompanied by a delegation of 20 officials.

At the meeting with the NEA management and representatives of a number of its member companies, the Tatarstan President expressed his interest in how businesses for investment are selected. As Dick Kramlich, the NEA Co-Founder and General Partner, said, NEA currently has 260 applications of companies seeking additional financial resources. Annually, they have some 2,000 candidates out of which 40 are selected on average.

A next stop on the Tatarstan President’s agenda was Stanford University in Palo-Alto where Rustam Minnikhanov met John Hennessy and had a tour of the campus of the business school. Stanford University was founded in 1891 and is located in the very heart of the Silicon Valley. Its graduated established such companies as Hewlett-Packard, Electronic Arts, Sun Microsystems, Nvidia, Yahoo!, Cisco Systems, Silicon Graphics and Google.

During the conversation with Mr. Hennessy, the Tatarstan President raised the issue of student exchange between Stanford University and Tatarstan’s leading universities.