| Photo: EPA  |  | 
The world’s leader in software –  the Microsoft Corporation – seriously intends to contribute to the  development of Russian information technologies. The company has  announced that n 10 years, it intends to pay grants to 100 Russian  startup companies. This is part of Microsoft’s long-tern agreement with  the Russian Foundation of the Skolkovo center of innovative  technologies.
Microsoft plans to invest from $ 30  thousand to 500 thousand in each project. The money will be paid  year-by-year. The first grant has already been given to the young  company “Pirate Pay” from the city of Perm. The company was formed only  half a year ago and is working on ways to protect copyrighted content  from piracy. Usually, means to fight with Web piracy are limited to  tracing and finding violators. The new technologies of the “Pirate Pay”  allow blocking the illegal content preventively. However, the program  sill cannot be released, because it needs some improvement.
“I  hope that $ 100 thousand, which the Microsoft has paid to the Perm  company, will be quite enough for them to finish their useful work,”  Microsoft’s President in Russia Nikolay Pryanishnikov says.
“The  grant is meant for a company to create some product – a prototype of a  future more large-scaled project, so that the company might have  something to show to potential investors to convince them to invest in  this company. Today, a good, properly-thought idea which needs only  money to be implemented, is rather rare – but with the Perm company,  it’s just the very case.”
To receive financial help  from the Microsoft, a company must be not older than 3 years, its money  turnover must not exceed $ 500 thousand, and, of course, it must develop  software. The main thing, still, is that its workers must be  goal-seeking, businesslike and risky to a certain extent – and, of  course, they must know much about the latest computer technologies.  Fortunately, Russia can boast of many such young people.
Besides  the “Pirate Pay”, another four projects made it to the contest’s  finals. One of then may probably also receive a grant. The Director of  Microsoft’s Seed Financing Fund Mikhail Tsygankov says:
“There  was a project for Web developers, which suggested some means to  simplify their work. There was a project of joint social cooperation  within large organizations. There was another one which had to do with a  city’s infrastructures – especially, with car parking, and another, of  ways to better process big amounts of data.”
Mikhail Tzygankov also says that today, about 1.5 young Russian companies are candidates for the Microsoft’s grant. 
 
 
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