AmBAR
Encyclopedia
The American Business Association of Russian-Speaking Professionals (AmBAR) is a non-profit organization
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 founded to support the Russian-speaking professional community in the United States. The organization's headquarters is located in Palo Alto, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

.

History

The AmBAR was founded in 2002 by a group of experienced technology entrepreneurs and business professionals from the Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...

 companies and venture capital firms such as Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

, Intel Capital, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Draper Fisher Jurvetson is a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California with affiliate offices in more than 30 cities around the world and over $7 billion in capital commitments....

.

Membership

In November 2011, AmBAR group on LinkedIn counted over 2000 members. People who associate themselves with AmBAR are entrepreneurs, engineers, marketers, lawyers, finance specialists, venture capitalists, angel investors, as well as representatives of many other fields.

AmBAR is the organizer of the Silicon Valley Open Doors
Silicon Valley Open Doors
Silicon Valley Open Doors is a technology investment conference which takes place annually in Silicon Valley .The goals of the conference are to demonstrate investment and business development opportunities available in Russia, Ukraine, and other CIS countries to US/European investors and...

 (SVOD) technology investment conference which takes place annually in Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...

 (California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, USA). During the seven years of its existence, SVOD provided boost in professional and business contacts to hundreds of startup ventures founded by Russian-speaking entrepreneurs and attracted prominent speakers from the Silicon Valley high tech community.

AmBAR Programs

AmBAR runs a range of events and programs that facilitate interaction and communication among and between the US and Russian (or, more broadly, Russian-speaking) business and professional communities. These activities are often organized in partnership with well-known organizations. In October 2010, AmBAR partnered with the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies of Stanford University (CREEES) to hold a panel discussion “What’s the Secret of Silicon Valley and How Can It Be Replicated in Russia”, whose guest speaker was Viktor Vekselberg
Viktor Vekselberg
Viktor Felixovich Vekselberg is the owner and president of Renova Group, a large Russian conglomerate.-Business empire:Victor Vekselberg was born in 1957 in Western Ukraine. He graduated from the Moscow Transportation Engineering Institute in 1979...

, the President of the Skolkovo Foundation.

With the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (Rusnano), AmBAR organized the Silicon Valley's First Venture Capital Trip to Russia.

"A Russian state-backed fund for investment in nanotechnology, Rusnano, organized the trip with AmBar, a trade group for Russian-speaking professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area.<...> Rusnano’s director, Anatoly Chubais, one of the architects of Russia’s immediate post-Soviet privatization, who has now joined the effort to diversify, said in a statement that the goal of the visit was to “bring together the country’s most promising innovative projects with the world’s smartest money.”

All events took place in Moscow on May 25-27, 2010. Most of participating VC firms are ranked within TOP 50 of all venture firms, with total amount of capital under management exceeding $50 billion. On May 25th, the delegates met with the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

AmBAR organized a meeting between Russian President Medvedev
Medvedev
Medvedev and female Medvedeva , from Russian medved, meaning the animal "bear", are Russian surnames.Notable bearers of the name include:Medvedev :...

and the Russian compatriots working in the San Francisco Bay Area. The meeting took place during Medvedev's June 2010 visit to Silicon Valley, in a cafe in Palo Alto. The exchange of opinions between AmBAR members and Medvedev went on for about two hours. The transcript of the meeting is available from the President's press service in both Russian and English. The discussion focused on the question "How could Russia reproduce the start-up and venture-capital culture of Silicon Valley?".
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