About the complex

The Joker conference is taking place in St. Petersburg for the fourth time. The convention format remains as follows: 2 days, 60-minute papers, half-an-hour breaks.

Conference speakers include leading US, European and Russian professionals such as a Cambridge researcher, the creator of Sonic Pi Sam Aaron, Oracle performance-engineer Alexey Shipilev, JFrog’s developer advocate Barukh Sadogursky, NAYA Technologies’ big data technical leader Evgeny Borisov and more.

Usually, there are many papers devoted to the following subjects at the Joker conference: JVM-applications and their improvement, JDK/JVM internals, JDK/JVM alternative implementation, useful tools and frameworks, Spring and its constituents. New areas include Java-architecture, enterprise Java, problems & solutions, DevOps & Cloud.

The conference provides a special program for Java entry-level developers and students. Entertaining supplements are the vintage computer exhibition by ICanCode and a party featuring DJ Sam Aaron.

The event primary sponsor is the Odnoklassniki social network service. The event is organised by the Jug.ru Group.

The exhibition offers a wide range of creative gift solutions: from whiskey stones and glass Christmas-tree decorations to luxury customized gifts made to order. The International Association of Presentation Products introduced its prize contenders at its stand: the most unique promotional items of the last year, for instance, honey in a natural wax tin or medical chemical heating pads in any shape and color.

The AdBox company presents a ready-made solution for spectacular demonstrations, advertising campaigns and behavioral scoring – these three stands are used in shopping centers, malls, cafes, exhibitions and other areas with a high traffic flow. AdBox technology helps estimate visitor traffic, behavior patterns, demonstration campaign engagement rates and compiles automated detailed reports.

The IDCgroup FlyStand stand provides an overview of modern presentation solutions, so-called fly stands, supporting the rotation of items up to 2 kg in the air that may be complemented with a screen for video and slide-show display.

Some exhibitors are so outstanding that they are short of exhibition space: such as the LazyBag air sofas protruding into all the surrounding exhibition passages, inviting visitors to try them out right there.

Their neighboring Russian company Be in 3D demonstrates to visitors the opportunity to create their own miniature avatars. After having been scanned for 3 minutes, the client can obtain their own 1:10 scale figure made of colored gypsum reflecting all the features of its live prototype such as facial traits, items of clothing, and even its character and manner.

One of the event’s foreign exhibitors is Shanghai derflex, a Chinese manufacturer of banner fabric for street banners and tents. But most solutions and equipment offered at the exhibition are Made in Russia. This is another mark of pride for exhibitors.

The greatest exhibition area was occupied by the Decoration and Lighting Festival, at which lighting solutions designed for city decoration were presented by Diamond-Led, SOS Decoration, Karlsbach, ReCol, BigDecor, Tochka Opory, Svetovye Resheniya Illuminatsia and GK Megapolis. Illuminated Christmas trees and twinkling 3D-garlands create a Christmas mood among visitors. One of the first exhibition visitors was Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Board of PJSC Gazprom. He greatly appreciated the outdoor and indoor advertising, festival decoration and lighting equipment, materials and solutions on display. The most interesting of them will be included in Gazprom’s facility decoration design plan.

Around 100 companies from 14 countries presented medical devices and equipment, pharmaceuticals, medical and health services, biotechnology and services in the field of aesthetic medicine at the ExpoForum Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Firstly, representatives of Saint Petersburg’s Health Committee addressed the meeting at their stand: delegates from the City Prophylaxis Center, Obligatory Health Insurance Fund, City’s Health Information Service and Health Centers told visitors about their activities.

“This exhibition is an invaluable experience for professionals. It helps reconsider existing issues facing the health service and learn about related state-of-the-art developments,” said the vice-governor of Saint Petersburg Olga Alexandrovna Kazanskaya at the official opening. “A great number of specialists take part in this exhibition each year: experts from branch ministries and departments, prominent scientists from Russia and Saint Petersburg, famous clinical physicians and medical practitioners. They are all interested in state-of-the-art developments in public health services”.

Sirotkin Oleg Gennadyevich, Head of the Healthy Lifestyle department of Saint Petersburg’s Health Committee, introduced the activities of the Health Centers to VIP visitors. “29 Health Centers (22 for adults and 7 for children) have been launched in Saint Petersburg under the National Health Program. They are all provided with modern equipment to assess non-communicable disease risks. Any person can be examined in the Center for free under the Compulsory Health Insurance program”, emphasised Oleg Gennadyevich.

PJSC Krasnogvardeets, a century-old Saint Petersburg manufacturer of medical equipment, introduced its anesthetic respiratory apparatus being tested in 30 Russian regions. “About 4,000 anesthesias were carried out on a nationwide scale; the longest operation lasted 12 hours, while the shortest one took 3 hours. The apparatus has been proven in various fields – cardiology and visceral surgeries for babies weighing from 2 kg, in children’s hospitals. It is receiving good feedback,” remarked the Plant’s Chief Designer Armen Shekoyan.

The Master-Med company (Saint Petersburg), official distributor of Mindray, China’s medical equipment supplier, announced its proprietary solution unrivalled throughout the world – a multi-modal monitor for intracranial pressure control.

The private Spanish Hospital Clinica Benidorm (Costa Blanca) presented its services at the “Primary Wellness Tourism” exhibition. This healthcare facility offers over 40 medical services including institutional examination, emergency and outpatient care. Most of the clinic’s patients come from abroad; this facility is gradually becoming one of the leading medical tourism centers.

“A distinctive feature of the St. Petersburg International Health Forum is the fact it unites efforts both in health care and in other social spheres with the single aim of improving the population’s health and quality of life. The Forum supports close relations with the Healthy Cities movement, which comprises around 1,400 cities from 32 world states. Saint Petersburg is a Russian capital within this movement”, highlighted the Chairman of St. Petersburg’s Health Committee Valery Mikhaylovich Kolabutin.

Delegates of the Forum were welcomed by Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Management Committee of Gazprom, “The Forum has become one of the main platforms for discussion of the global gas sector development. Every year the scope of this event extends. This year about three thousand delegates from several dozens countries are going to take part in it. This year the exhibition is dedicated to new technologies and equipment for the gas sector under the Russian import substitution program, in which Gazprom has its active part”. Mr. Miller has specially noted the Youth Day during the Forum, “As it was a success last year, we decided to continue this dialogue of generations in the energy and gas industry”. He announced an outstanding cultural event, for the first time coordinated with the Forum, the concert of global celebrities in classic music and opera singing from Russia and Austria “Imperial Capitals: Vienna and St. Petersburg” that is to take place in the St. Petersburg Academic Philharmonia.

Members of the Forum have also been welcomed by Georgy Poltavchenko, Governor of St. Petersburg. He noticed that it’s not by occasion that the key oil and gas event is held in St. Petersburg, as it was here that about 200 years ago the gas industry began – in 1818 it was the first place in Russia, where gas street-lamps were used. St. Petersburg became pioneer for many directions of the industry development, such as construction of gas pipelines and gas plants, technologies for discovery and recovery of gas, development of schemes for gas supply of regions. “We’re proud that the strategic partner of our city is Gazprom that is now erecting the largest office center in Europe, of more than 400 meters high, and always aids St. Petersburg in solving many economical and ecological matters and takes active part in its improvement”, Mr. Poltavchenko emphasized. “Within the framework of switching the heat power system to natural gas the city is now consuming about 10.5 mlrd m3 a year. Over 1500 large and medium enterprises of the city work on gas. An actual trend is switching city transport to gas engine fuel, which provides a significant impact into solving the ecological problems of St. Petersburg and development of new technologies, as well”.

The key subject of the Plenary Session was discussed by heads of the largest oil and gas companies – Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Management Committee of Gazprom, Ben van Beurden, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell plc, Klaus Schäfer, Member of the Board, CEO of Uniper SE, Manfred Leitner, Member of Board of Directors at OMV AG, and Xu Wenrong, Vice President of CNPC. They assessed the state and capacity of natural gas markets in their countries and in the world in general, discussed amounts of energy being consumed and perspectives for development of energy resources. The speakers agreed that certain problems of the global economy can’t be solved unless the global consumption of natural gas increases, that is why synergy and cooperation of the largest gas corporations in matters of the sector development are necessary for stable economic growth.

According to Alexey Popov, Russian Consul General in Thessaloniki, the application of St. Petersburg prevailed over the applications of Lyon (France) and Sydney (Australia).
ExpoForum Convention and Exhibition Center will serve as a venue of the event.
In 2016 the Congress was attended by over 800 chefs from 85 countries.

“The Worldchefs Congress is not just an opportunity to attract new tourists,” says Sergey Voronkov, General Director of ExpoForum International. – “With the help of such events we can position Petersburg as a gastronomic destination. This event will make a sizeable contribution to the development of our city’s gastronomic brand and – more broadly – promote Russia’s northern capital as an international congress destination”.

Every two years, the Worldchefs Congress gathers top chefs to demonstrate the diversity of the hosting country’s cuisine. The Congress participants prepare local and national dishes and talk about trends in the industry, e.g., this year they discussed molecular gastronomy.  The discussion was led by the trend’s founder Hervé This.

The Congress also includes a large educational program, a contest for young chefs (Bill Gallagher Young Chefs Forum), an exhibition, numerous culinary events, lectures and meetings.
The next Congress will take place in 2018 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The competitions were initiated by St. Petersburg City Committee for Education. To achieve the main goal of raising the prestige of working professions, it was decided to arrange a visual demonstration of 56 specialities that are taught in city colleges and vocational schools. The large pavilion housed more than 40 stands with different equipment and tools for each speciality.

After the welcome address by Governor Georgy Poltavchenko, about 460 participating students of secondary educational institutions received their creative tasks for all three days and went to the stands to compete for the title of the  best in their profession.
The Culinary Arts stand was designed as a restaurant kitchen — with sinks, tables, cutting tools and mechanisms, and the Applied Aesthetics stand copied exactly the beautician’s office.

Most students competed for three days and had to present a finished product in the end. “At the Fabrics and Wood Art Painting stand, the participants make kerchiefs and decorative plates using sketches, it takes a lot of time”, the stand curator says. Some occupations had competitions in several stages. “Our student teams from teacher training colleges must prepare Russian language lesson fragments for the second grade, introducing a new topic. Then they present their results to volunteers from among elementary schoolchildren. Tomorrow there will be a new topic”, the curator of the Primary School Teacher stand explained.

The regional stage of the Abilimpics competition for children with disabilities takes place simultaneously with the main competition program. Judges in “Step into Profession” and “Young Professionals” events consists of experts from various enterprises and organizations from St. Petersburg and other regions of Russia, vocational trainers, teachers of special disciplines, heads of vocational education institutions.

The interactive exhibition is geared toward schoolchildren of different ages.
During the event more than 20,000 St. Petersburg students got to study various professions, participated in volunteering projects and received detailed information on what knowledge and skills people in particular professions had to have, and where you can get a degree in turning, baking, programming, wood processing and much more.

Dmitry Cherneyko. Mr. Cherneyko said that the fair was a great way to start a series of events planned by the Committee until the end of the year, as well as the prologue for the upcoming new project — the Saint Petersburg International HR Forum, which will take place at ExpoForum in March 2017.

“The fair is attended by 180 employers, and in just a few hours it was visited by more than 3,000 people. We are conducting a three-day event for the first time. According to our estimates about 30,000 job seekers will be able to talk with employers and to visit a few dozen training sessions, seminars and presentations during the event”, Mr. Cherneyko said.
Evgeny Gorin, Executive Vice President of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of St. Petersburg, noted that the majority of jobs in the economy was determined by the members of the Union, and these jobs facilitate development of our city.
 He expressed hope that educational institutions of the city would deliver more and more balanced and qualified personnel year after year. According to Mr. Gorin, the job fair is one of the most important elements of pre-service and in-service training of staff that provides qualified personnel for the city economy.

Sergey Voronkov, General Director of ExpoForum International said that the fair was held for the first time, simultaneously and at the same venue with the Russian Industrialist Forum, the St. Petersburg International Innovation Forum and professional skills competitions.
“The problem of filling vacancies, assessing skills and retraining is relevant to all sectors of the economy, including industry, which is widely represented at these forums today.
We hope that holding four events at the same time will give the desired synergy effect to all participants and visitors”, Mr. Voronkov concluded.

The fair will be held in St. Petersburg on September 21-23.
In addition to numerous stands for interviews, there will be three interactive areas
(“Career Guidance”, “Education” and “Job Search”) open at the event with daily presentations of companies, seminars, business games and trainings.

Candidates will be offered positions in the field of education, manufacturing, trade, real estate, health care, transport, banking, service, catering, public administration and security.

St. Petersburg International Innovation Forum traditionally presents curring-edge products and prototypes at stands of city business incubators, including Ingria, Technopark of St. Petersburg, First Business Incubator, and St. Petersburg Polytechnic University.

The innovations were presented and demonstrated in operation at the joint stand of St. Petersburg City Committee for Science and Higher Education by leading universities and research centers, including St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical Institute, Bonch-Bruevich St. Petersburg State University of Telecommunications, St. Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation, St. Petersburg State Chemistry and Pharmacy Academy, St. Petersburg State Transport University and others.

The centerpiece of the exhibition was a joint stand of Ingria, the largest business incubator of St. Petersburg, which currently has 83 residents. 15 of them presented their projects at the Saint Petersburg International Innovation Forum 2016, including Kiki, a full-height robot, industrial drones, several virtual reality projects, etc. Separate stands are allocated for the model of GyroLidar, the giroplane of Auto G with a solution of the ground remote sensing using an infrared camera, a multi-camera and other devices and for portable battery chargers for electric vehicles which, according to developers, have already become an object of interest in a few large manufacturing companies.

The second largest participant of PIIF — Polytech — has brought an extended exposure.
“Our high school is participating in the national technological initiative. The Polytech has many solutions for different areas of the economy: for example, there are prototypes of an energy absorbing container for transportation of valuable goods, an auto mirror prototype which is made in the reverse engineering centre of the Institute of advanced production technologies of Polytech, and many more.

The Fablab stand showed the most interesting students’ works”, says Dmitry Karpov, the Head of the Directorate of congress exhibitions. Another long-time member of the Forum, REO Service (“The First City Business Incubator”) having obtained 36 new residents over the past year, provided a platform for the presentation of projects to 26 small business enterprises: from teas and superfoods (“Starorussky Tea”, New Nutrion) to complex developments in the field of mechanical engineering (“Meteospetspribor”).

A distinctive feature of the stand was the own extensive business program that included performances and workshops on marketing, promotion, business audit, a mini-conference by the community of experts of “Delovaya Afisha”, the final of the Business Case Competition for students, as well as the expert investment session which will bring together developers and owners of small business projects.

Anyone could get advice on the development of own business and learn about the possibilities of financial support both at stands of incubators (such as the Development Fund of Small Enterprises in Science and Technology) and at the ones of non-commercial organisations: the Industrial Development Fund showed its own stand with the presentation of opportunities and advice of experts too. Also, PIIF had several areas for business communication and a subcontracting area, where small and medium business enterprises can dialogue with major industrial enterprises. And for the development of the international and foreign economic cooperation with partner cities and regions of St. Petersburg, there was a joint stand of “Global Partners of St. Petersburg”, which housed 20 exhibitors: various infrastructures for supporting the international business, chambers of commerce, representatives of CBC programs, representatives of partner regions implementing projects together with our city.
This year, the Innovation Forum brought its program together with the one of the “Russian Industrialist”, which expanded the theme of discussions allowed a discussion of the practical application of all developments at real-life examples, that will lead to work contracts in the future.
The business program includes round tables and workshops for six thematic areas: growth technology, industry solutions for different clusters, solutions to increase the competitiveness of Russian products and developments, solutions for the implementation of ideas and improving the society life level.

PIIF also hosted the final of the business ideas, scientific and technical developments and research projects  competition under the motto “Young, impudent, perspective”, the semi-final of the 5th All-Russian Cup of “Best Innovative Region of Russia 2016” and the semi-final selection of the program “Know-it-all” of the Innovation Assistance Fund.

The Forum exhibition brought together innovative products made by more than 200 industrial enterprises and research institutes from different regions of Russia. An important place is occupied by educational institutions — 10 universities present their training programs in innovative industries.

As part of  “Step Into Profession” and the Regional Open Championship “Young professionals” (WorldSkills Russia) professional competitions, more than 400 students of professional education institutions of the Russia’s Northern capital and regions of the Russian North-West will compete in 56 professions and occupations. The Job Fair presents some 45,000 vacancies.

Governor Georgy Poltavchenko of St. Petersburg came to ExpoForum to support the participants: He said: “St. Petersburg is one of the most innovative regions of the country: it occupies the 1st place in the internal rating of innovative regions, and in the global ranking, which involves about 450 innovative cities in the world, we improved our position by 33 points having advanced from the 81st to the 48th place in just one year.”

Expositions of Russian Industrialist and the Saint Petersburg International Innovation Forum presented quite a few interesting and unique products, the Governor said.
For example, at the stand of St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Gov. Poltavchenko studied a product made by graduate student Ivan Kononov — a light and intelligent electric scooter and a versatile macro lens, which allows turning smart phones, tablets and laptops into powerful microscopes.

Gyrolidar Company presented integrated solutions for scanning electricity transmission lines, quarries, forests, sites of disasters, etc. With the help of complexes combining high-precision devices and media, 3D city models are created for use in construction and design.
One of examples is a flying car, Gyrolidar aerocopter, which can reach the speed of 200 km/h.
The complex is used for security and commercial purposes, and in agriculture.
The Governor paid particular attention to the Medical Instrument Making Cluster of St. Petersburg, which unites 149 companies and is the leaders in the industry cluster movement.
Enterprises of the cluster presented unique equipment that has no analogues in Russia and is quite competitive internationally: an intensive care stretcher equipped with all the necessary tools for delivery of the injured person from the sorting point to the hospital, a system for fighting healthcare-associated infections, a system for disinfection of public transport, a special system for babies and patients requiring special heating, a laser system for treatment and diagnosis of cancer, the first ultrasound device fully localized in Russia.
Traditionally, Russian Industrialist Forum is has been held together with St. Petersburg International Innovation Forum. This year, the two projects have a joint business program which focuses on practical solutions.

It includes more than 100 events. Members of more than 100 discussion panels and round tables will talk about topical issues of implementing innovation in manufacturing, measures of state support of small and medium-sized enterprises, public-private partnerships and development of clusters, import substitution and export stimulation programs.