From May 19 to June 20, 2025, registration for entrepreneurs from Russia will be available on the official website of the International Youth Acceleration Programme “SCO Business Incubator”.

Successful Russian entrepreneurs aged 20 to 40, eager to scale their businesses and expand beyond local, regional, and national market to the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), are eligible to join the event.

In 2025, the International Youth Acceleration Programme “SCO Business Incubator” invites even more participants worldwide. The best entrepreneurs (5 from each of the 10 SCO countries) will meet in August 2025 in Omsk, Russia’s Youth Capital, with a visit to Shanghai, China scheduled for the fall, 2025. Participants will have the opportunity to attract investment and establish international contacts to expand their businesses.

The SCO Business Incubator is organized by the Russian and Chinese national parts of the SCO Youth Council, the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, the World Youth Festival Directorate, the Government of the Omsk Region, and the ANO “Leaders of International Cooperation”.

“Today Russia has more than 8 million young entrepreneurs, and this number is growing every day. This growth has largely become possible thanks to existing measures of state support, which we intend to keep on expanding. The national projects ‘Youth and Children’ and ‘Personnel,’ launched on the initiative of the President of Russia, contribute to creating a favorable environment for unlocking youth potential. It is also important to create opportunities for international integration. The SCO Business Incubator programme serves this purpose. It was hosted by the city of Omsk, recently chosen as Russia’s Youth Capital and one of the regions focusing on the development and support of youth initiatives”, said Grigory Gurov, Head of Rosmolodezh.

The SCO Business Incubator aims to encourage cooperation among young entrepreneurs, attract investment, and introduce new technologies in the member states.

“The World Youth Festival Directorate focuses on developing international cooperation, including among entrepreneurs. We collaborate with the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization through various events and projects, with support from our International Project Offices abroad. One of this year’s highlights is the SCO Business Incubator: we are actively engaged in organizing this event by attracting foreign experts through our network of international contacts, designing the programme, supporting the event by providing international expertise, and facilitating the participant selection process. More than 50 young entrepreneurs aged 20 to 40 from 10 SCO member states will take part in the event”, said Dmitry Ivanov, Director General of the World Youth Festival Directorate.

Entrepreneurs will pitch projects in such priority areas as technical and technological advancements, STEM research, and creative industries. Participants are selected by the national parts of the SCO Youth Council.

“The SCO Business Incubator is included in the list of SCO youth exchange and cooperation projects for 2024–2025. We are delighted to see that China and Russia, as two of the SCO’s founding states, engage in fruitful cooperation and implement more and more youth programmes. We look forward to welcoming all participants of the Business Incubator this fall in Shanghai, as we are already actively involved in designing the programme for it”, emphasized Wang Dong, Director General of the Shandong Information Technology Group “Lunai” and Head of the Secretariat of the SCO Business Incubator Mentors Council.

In 2024, the SCO Business Incubator programme took place in Moscow and Dubna, bringing together more than 50 young entrepreneurs from ten countries, with more than 70 joint business projects launched.