Igor Rybakov

FIRST EARNINGS. In 1988, while still in high school, Rybakov earned 1,400 Soviet rubles by working with a student construction brigade, which at that time was comparable to the annual salary of an engineer. [3]

FIRST COMPANY. In 1992, he founded Technonikol [4] with his classmate Sergei Kolesnikov. [5] In November 2018, Igor Rybakov and Sergey Kolesnikov won the 2018 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Award in Russia. [6] [7] Together they attended the gala awards ceremony in Monaco in June 2019. [8]

FIRST CHILD. In 2000, Igor and Ekaterina Rybakov's daughter, Polina, was born. [9]

FIRST BOOK. In 2017, Thirst—a business philosophy by Igor Rybakov was published. It won PwC's Business Book of the Year in Russia award in 2018. [10]

FIRST FORBES. In 2015, Igor Rybakov was included for the first time in the Forbes rankings with a $450 million net worth. [11]

FIRST ALBUM. In 2019, Bloomberg reported the release of Igor Rybakov's first music album Summer Has Been Going Away (Russian: «Уходило лето»). [12] [13] [14]

FIRST MOVIE. In 2019, he produced a short film Fair Play where he starred alongside a controversial British blogger Thogden (Theo Ogden). “He was cast as an extra in the Russian film Fair Play,” said Thogdad (his father, Stephen Ogden) about his son's role in this film. [15]

FIRST MILLION for his home school. In January 2020, the billionaire created an Endowment for his home school #56 with a $1 million donation. Rybakov said, “I am a grateful graduate of my school #56 and I want to complete my lesson at school, to give my eternal human thanks!” [16]

Igor Rybakov believes that every successful, accomplished person in society has the obligation and responsibility to share their experience and knowledge with others. This kind of sharing is what life is all about. He and Ekaterina are doing everything possible to leave their children a continuing legacy, not merely an inheritance. Igor is an ecosystem architect who carefully uses his capacity for philanthropic patronage to create a more prosperous, harmonious, and happy future for all humanity.

RYBAKOV PRIZE. Forbes calls this award the “Nobel Prize in Education.” [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] The purpose of this award, established by Igor and Ekaterina Rybakov, is to highlight the role models of entrepreneurs, patrons, and philanthropists—all of those who take the initiative to establish schools not only as sources of knowledge but also as a vibrant center for local communities and their development. [22] [23] [21] [24] [25] [26] THE RYBAKOV PRIZE “grand prize” award is $1 million.

RYBAKOV FAMILY FOUNDATION. The Foundation's focus is the improvement of education in Russia and around the world. The Foundation's President is Ekaterina Rybakova. [27] [21] The mission of the RYBAKOV FAMILY FOUNDATION is to establish a tradition of developing society with our own hands. To accomplish this mission, we adopted the concept of “School is the center of society” to help make positive changes in the socio-educational environment in schools. This kind of environment will provide a common shared experience for all of its participants. A school's teachers and parents, students and graduates, principals and partners are not divided into suppliers and consumers of information, knowledge, or services but participate equally in creating a new kind of educational experience. Creating such an environment is not only a new way of doing things but also a new way of thinking—with co-creation, co-action, and co-being. [21] [28] [29] [30] [31]

RYBAKOV INSTITUTE. The Institute's goal is to accelerate economic growth in Russia and around the world through the creation, patronage, and development of high impact philanthropic and social entrepreneurship projects. The RYBAKOV INSTITUTE is responsible for patronizing and developing the RYBAKOV FAMILY FOUNDATION ecosystem. [32]

RYBAKOV Preschool Award. The all-Russian Competition named in honor of Lev Vygotsky provides an environment for sharing pedagogical experience in child-centered preschool education. This competition is a part of the Foundation's ecosystem. [33] [21]

RYBAKOV School Award. The all-Russian Сompetition provides an environment for sharing experience in transforming schools into the centers of society. The competition discovers the best examples of active school communities and their leaders—principals, teachers, parents, and graduates. This competition is a part of the Foundation's ecosystem. With the assistance of the Foundation and the Institute, such communities as RYBAKOV PRO-Kids [34] and PRO Women [35] were created. The philosophy of the Foundation and the Institute also helped such a fundamental link as RYBAKOV X10 ACADEMY [36] and the international business club Equium [37] emerge to further shape the ecosystem. [33] [21]

The Foundation and its founders Igor and Ekaterina have personally joined in the fight against the coronavirus. [38] [39] [40] [41] [42]

In 2020, the Foundation ranked third among private charitable foundations in Russia, according to the RAEX rating agency. [43]

CONFERENCE UNIVERSITY OF CHILDHOOD: NOTEWORTHY PRACTICES. On June 1-3, 2020, the first International Practical Online Conference “University of Childhood: Noteworthy Practices” took place. Fifteen thousand participants from 40 countries attended. Speakers from Russia, the US, Finland, Italy, and the UNESCO Institute presented six innovative best practices in preschool education. [44] Summing up the conference Ekaterina Rybakova noted, “The numbers show how vital and burning the topic voiced at the conference was. We see the demand for new knowledge, for modern practices, for communication with representatives of different cultures and different nationalities. “University of Childhood” takes on this task and unites educators. We will definitely continue working in this direction.” [44] [45]

EDUCATION PLEDGE. On February 2, 2020, at the RYBAKOV PRIZE Award Ceremony, Igor and Ekaterina Rybakov joined the EDUCATION PLEDGE — an international community of philanthropists in the field of education. They signed a personal pledge to spend 100 million dollars in the next ten years on education improvement projects in Russia and around the world. [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52]

In 1992, while studying on 3rd course of institute, in collaboration with his classmate Sergei Kolesnikov found «Technonicol» company,[53][2] which is included in Forbes Top 200 biggest private companies in Russia at the moment (91st place in 2015). TechnoNICOL Group comprises 55 production plants in Russia, Belarus, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Italy, United Kingdom and Germany[54]

Rybakov released the book «Thirst» in December 2017, in which he shared his vision of «Technonicole» foundation and his business philosophy, and also told how he decided to engage in active philanthropy.[55] The book «Thirst» was included in the shortlist of «Business book of the year in Russia» award.[56]

In 2018 TechnoNICOL acquired 100% of a large construction materials producer - IZOVOL (Belgorod, Russia). [57]

In November 2018, Igor Rybakov, together with his partner in TechnoNIKOL, Sergey Kolesnikov, won the EY competition “Entrepreneur of the Year 2018” in Russia. [58]

Nicole-PAK became the owner of a controlling stake in Anren Pack. Mr. Rybakov owns 50% of shares in Nicol-PAK company – vertically integrated producer of cardboard paper and cardboard paper goods. The company consists of five plants in Russia with total annual capacity of 255 thousand tons of cardboard paper. [59]

In February 2018 at metro station «Кurskaya» in Moscow, a "smart-office" of company SOK was opened. The office is acting on co-working basis. Igor Rybakov was co-investor of this project, his structures invested 1,2 billion rubles in SOK's co-working network.[60] In the summer of 2018, the SOK coworking network owned by a billionaire and co-founder of the TechnoNikol Corporation, Igor Rybakov, took 3,200 square meters under management in the business center "Gardens of Beijing" next to "Mayakovskaya" metro station. According to the consulting company OF.RU, which acted as a consultant to the transaction, the lease agreement for a period of 10 years was signed in August.[61] In September 2018, SOK smart offices opened the largest co-working in Russia in the VTB Arena Park building on Leningradsky Avenue in Moscow.[62]

In April 2018 Israeli business integrator Prytek entered the Russian market to invest into Russian startups with average bill of $2 million and promote them outside the country. The co-founder of «Technonicole» Igor Rybakov became the key Russian partner of Prytek. Prytek has already invested more than $100 million into 35 projects. [63] Prytek became a partner in the 2018 Chess Championship Match.[64]

Igor Rybakov is an experienced yachtsman, he won the World Championship as part of the sailing yacht team Technonicol (X-41).

He supports the development of rowing sports, in particular, he supports the rowing festival «Russian Venice» (Russian:«Русская Венеция») in Vishniy Volochek (Russian: Вышнем Волочке).

Rybakov also supports rowing sport club «Moscow Dragons» (Russian: «Московские Драконы»).

Married, has four children. Wife – Ekaterina.

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