|
News | October 15, 2009
Russian IT Quaterly reflects on Government Innovation Initiatives
In this edition, Russian IT Quarterly reflects on a new strategy declared by the Russian government. At a series of conferences and exhibitions that took place in Moscow and St. Petersburg during last month, President Dmitry Medvedev emphasised his intention to change the course of the country from natural resource supplier to high technology provider. In essence, the Russian government is pursuing a truly ambitious aim - to create a new Silicon Valley on Russian soil, a production center for new high-tech products and technologies, headed by the state-owned Rosnano Corporation. How realistic is this? On the one hand, the pool of Russian high-tech products is quite shallow at the moment. These include military, space and nuclear energy technologies along with a few names like Kaspersky, SPIRIT and Abbyy. However, Russia possesses a good nutrient solution to grow the innovations reef. Besides the famously high quality of Russia's technical education, the last ten years have seen the emergence of new IT and telecom service companies capable of working with both domestic and overseas enterprises. This seems to be a solid grounding for any successfully developing IT and innovations industry. Service companies working for a broad range of clients accumulate the best business practices, knowledge of business processes and best technology solutions. They become a source of knowledge for the domestic market, breeding highly competent personnel with rich, transferable skills, who are able to set up their own product companies or enhance existing ones. Service companies can also become the launch pad for various start-ups, as Reksoft was at an earlier stage of development, when the company developed Russia's most successful online retailer, the country's first internet payment gateway and a leading hospitality ERP system, alongside a number of niche products. From this point of view, the prospects for a Russian Silicon valley look positive. However, as we know, the nutrient solution is not enough to create life. A benevolent Creator must create the spark - in this case, entrepreneur activity.
If you would like to receive electronic News and IT Quarterly from Reksoft, please use subscription: |