On 19 October, Dmitry Medvedev will meet with President of Croatia Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic in Moscow17 October 2017 15:30
During their conversation, Russian Prime Minister and Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic will discuss current issues of Russian-Croatian trade, economic and investment cooperation, as well as cooperation in the energy, industrial and cultural sectors.
The President of the Republic of Croatia will be in Russia on an official visit at the invitation of the Russian President.
Sixth Open Innovations Moscow International Forum
17 October 2017 13:30 Skolkovo, Moscow RegionThe theme of the plenary session is, Digital Economy. Society. Business. State.
Plenary session of the 6th Open Innovations Moscow International Forum
17 October 2017
Plenary session of the 6th Open Innovations Moscow International Forum
17 October 2017
Plenary session of the 6th Open Innovations Moscow International Forum
17 October 2017
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Plenary session of the 6th Open Innovations Moscow International Forum
The Open Innovations International Forum for Innovative Development was first held in Moscow back in 2012. It is organised by the Ministry of Economic Development, the Moscow Government, RUSNANO's Fund for Infrastructure and Educational Programmes, the Russian Venture Company, the Innovation Support Fund, the Skolkovo Foundation, and Vnesheconombank.
The forum’s format includes three days each covering a specific area. The first day’s agenda was digital transformation of conventional companies and industries as well as the revolution in management technology. The second day will be devoted to changes in the public administration system entailed by the global digitalisation. The third day will cover the social aspects of the digital economy.
Plenary session
Excerpt from the transcript:
Plenary session of the 6th Open Innovations Moscow International Forum
Dmitry Medvedev: Mr Bettel, ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome to Skolkovo and to the sixth Open Innovations forum. This year’s topic is the digital economy. Now I would like to share some of my assessments of what is happening.
The digital economy today is already a given and it is not imposed by a government order or at the initiative of individual entrepreneurs. This is what surrounds us in the literal and figurative senses. Smartphones, mobile internet, social networking, e-commerce, and electronic payments are all part of our modern lifestyle. Data processing helps predict consumer behaviour, and even to build new business models that transform entire markets, something that was difficult to imagine even 10-15 years ago.
Some say that data is like new oil. Anyone who learns how to turn data into useful solutions, wins and vice versa, those who don’t catch onto these opportunities lag behind, and maybe even forever. This is true of individual companies, whole sectors, as well as countries. Competitions are now of planetary scale.
Of course, the competition is now global. Almost everybody can feel the consequences. Firstly, people themselves, secondly, traditional companies (I mean companies that are successful in traditional economic sectors) and thirdly, states. I will speak about these three components in more detail.
The first is people’s ability to adapt to the new technological wave. We’ve done a lot to make the digital culture familiar in our country, but at the same time this task is more difficult for us than for many other countries. Russia sits quite high in various international rankings. For example, during a period of just five years, we have risen by 36 positions according to the Networked Readiness Index.
According to our statistics, 75 percent of households have access to the internet plus the fact that we have the highest number of internet users in Europe. More than half state-service clients have chosen online technology. However, we, of course, should not forget the so-called analogue Russia: the digital inequality of the regions and far-away locations without high-speed access to the internet. We should also take into account the generation gap. This is a problem we have here, but it also exists in other countries too.
The digital transformation changes the labour market a lot. The demand on those who specialise in big data analysis, mathematic modelling, financial technology and cybersecurity will increase. On the other hand, jobs associated with routine and processing of typical information may suffer the most damage. We have to think how we can help people adapt to the new situation. The transformation already involves all levels of the educational system.
New requirements are in place at all levels, beginning from schools. Of course, we support talented children who are doing well in ICT and maths, we help teachers update their skills as well, we will also develop a system of mathematical and engineering education, and obviously we do have world class experts in computer programming as well as cryptography. However, we are not making the most of our intellectual potential to advance our economy, our ideas are poorly translated into ready commercial technology. We have no shortage when it comes to inventors but we don’t have enough accomplished business projects. This is undoubtedly our weak point. Many foreign engineering and IT-companies, including those in Silicon Valley, employ a lot of our compatriots. Our goal is to encourage young talents to realise their potential here.
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Implementing the comprehensive project to create and develop a campus of the St Petersburg National Research University of Information Technology, Engineering and Optical DesignThis is the reason we set up Skolkovo at the time, where we are now, and there should be many more such centres with concentrated IQ. This is our principled policy supported by a newly adopted law on innovative science and technology centres. We build such innovative complexes, centres. I recently
signed a resolution to open a new innovation cluster in the Pushkin District of St Petersburg. It will have research centres, labs, education units, accommodation, innovative industries, and a new campus for the St Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics. This is one of our country’s best universities in this area, and its team was a seven-time winner of the world programming championship this year.
The second set of issues that I would like to discuss is whether our companies are ready for the digital change. After all, digitalisation doesn’t just change our way of life, but it also changes how we work, as I said before, in traditional industries, such as energy, transport, and engineering. New civilian airliners like the Sukhoi Superjet 100 or the MS-21 have already been digitised. The engineering offices exchange paperless documentation. Digitisation allows us to use new technical solutions. The airlines can immediately plan their maintenance service, and streamline the loading of their fleet. To do this, we recently adopted the Digital Economy Programme and a management system for it. A dialogue was initiated between the state and businesses across five areas: regulations, cadres, training, forming research competences and technical capacities, information infrastructure and security. For each of them, competence centres and working groups have been identified.
Of course, we won’t accomplish all this just by giving orders; it wouldn’t work. Digitalisation is a matter of the competitiveness of the business itself. In the final analysis, the business itself is interested in this. Start-ups that were obscure only recently are now able to dislodge solid, serious players from the market (this happens in all countries), by offering a better business model, and promoting their platform solution.
In the coming years, many dynamic digital companies will spring up. There is great potential for this. It can be achieved quickly and at relatively low cost. I’m referring to transport and logistics services, healthcare, education, financial technologies, smart urban environment, modern agricultural production, and other areas.
We will take remote areas, hospitals, and schools online. In addition, in the near future we will start creating a fifth generation mobile communication network. This is a fairly difficult undertaking considering that it requires considerable expense. But in any case, this will speed up the development of high-tech companies. We will continue to create conditions for them to attract investment, and for venture funds that are willing to support Russian start-ups.
Finally, the third issue that I would like to focus on is whether the state itself is ready for such a transformation.
Of course, addressing this objective in a country as vast as Russia is a challenge, but it’s an interesting proposition nonetheless.
Digitalisation changes approaches to public administration and legal regulation. There are a number of issues with intellectual rights, the protection of personal information which is related to the cross-border nature of the vast majority of services, when it is sometimes impossible to trace the jurisdiction and rules by which such companies operate.
As IoT technologies develop, a question arises as to whether our critical infrastructure and people’s everyday life in general are, in fact, ready for this. Are we ready to accept the fact that this kind of activity will be controlled from the outside, including through foreign digital platforms. It is, indeed, a problem for the state as well as for the individuals.
New technologies, such as blockchain, for example, are capable of radically changing legal operations related to data count and confirmation based on contracts. Due to their nature, they cannot belong to an individual country or a group of countries.
At the same time, any transformation causes much foam, which is also being discussed. A boom on the crypto currency market and other blockchain-based initiatives might, in case there are no clear-cut rules, generate quite serious risks for which decentralised players, let alone anonymous players, cannot be responsible.
The speed of technological changes requires more flexibility from regulators. There should be fewer barriers, including regulatory barriers. We should assess new regulatory standards from the point of view of digitalisation tasks. Regulatory activity as we can already see today will lag behind technological progress. That does not mean, however, that there should be no regulation. Moreover, many ideas do not stand the test of the market and simply evaporate or disappear. That’s normal. The world has already gained experience in this sphere. For example, the creation of separate pilot platforms free of excessive requirements. This approach makes it possible to test technological solutions within a fairly narrow scope. By and large, we were guided by this approach when we were creating the Skolkovo centre.
Colleagues! In conclusion, I would like to say that we have the potential to guarantee digital sovereignty, but we do not intend to shut ourselves up and build a kind of digital kolkhoz, if you will. The capacity of the Russian market is limited anyway. We will promote our products on global markets, but we would like to work together with international partners. It is important to create a trusting environment even today, though this is not always easy, as you know, due to well-known reasons. But we are open and I hope that this dialogue will continue here and at other discussion platforms.
Let me once again welcome you to Open Innovations. Thank you for your attention.
Question: Mr Prime Minister, Russia is clearly a champion in digital technologies. What would you say are the main achievements that have occurred during your term of office?
Dmitry Medvedev: I just talked about that. To a certain degree we occupy a unique position in the digital technology sector because of the country’s size. But if we are talking about what digital technology brings to our world, we can discuss it from various points of view, even a philosophical point of view. I think the most important thing is that digital technology saves us all time. And what is the most valuable thing in the human life that, unfortunately, has a limit? Time. What used to take hours, weeks and sometimes years can now be done in minutes. Think back to when you were discussing something, for example with your friends, and suddenly needed to look up the definition of a word or a certain location? We went to a library and searched in books. Now everybody uses their devices, goes to Wikipedia or a dictionary and gets answers in 10 or 15 seconds.
Public services. Almost half of them are provided online. Yes, the quality is not always perfect, but it exists and it is very important. People have chosen digital-tech, because it saves time.
Shopping. Now a lot of shopping is done on the internet. About 20 minutes ago I talked with Mr Ma (Chairman of Alibaba Group Jack Ma) and told him that last year the total volume of online sales in Russia was about a trillion roubles. That number seems large, even when converted to US dollars, but in fact, it is small. We would like to develop this sector further, because it represents just 3 percent of retail volume. Nevertheless, it is user-friendly; this is why the sector is growing. And so on.
In other words, everything I’ve listed and most of the things I’ve forgotten to list save us time and energy. And this is probably the main thing the digital economy provides.
Question (via interpreter): Relations between Russia and the West are uneasy. Is it more difficult to develop global technology during such a situation or does Russia have its own way of doing this?
Dmitry Medvedev: Of course, digital technology is global whereas all kinds of restrictions and sanctions are personal or targeted, and this is a direct contradiction. However, digital technology cannot be influenced by sanctions too much because it is global. In other words, it is immune to sanctions and this is an advantage for both a global world and digital technology. One can try to limit someone in something but it is very difficult to impose restrictions on digital technology. Obviously, we are not happy about the sanctions. This is abundantly clear. But we did not start all this and it is not for us to put an end to it. The sooner this comes to an end, the better for everyone.
As for our special way of coming to the digital world, it does not exist, of course. All of us together, the entire human race are following this road, creating a prototype of the future artificial intellect in different stages and resolving absolutely applied problems, including the internet of things. There is no special path into this world. However, naturally we are using our opportunities together with our advantages, including the training of our personnel who are top-notch specialists that we have in this area in order to play our own game. That said, we would like to do this together with others. In effect, this is the goal of the digital economy and the digital development in the modern world in general. We will continue doing this whether anyone likes it or not. I am sure we will be extremely successful.
Noah Raford (via interpreter): Thank you, Mr Prime Minister.
Dmitry Medvedev meets with Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group Jack Ma17 October 2017 13:00 Skolkovo, Moscow Region
The meeting was held on the sidelines of the Open Innovations forum.
Meeting of the International Advisory Board of the Moscow School of Management17 October 2017 12:20 Skolkovo, Moscow Region
Over 16,000 students have completed studies at the Skolkovo Moscow School of Management since 2006.
The Moscow School of Management Skolkovo is a private business school that was established on September 27, 2006 within the framework of the Education Priority National Project as a public-private partnership. The Skolkovo School is one of the largest private business schools in Russia and the CIS.
The school is managed by the International Advisory Board, which is chaired by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, together with the Coordination Council, which consists of 18 founding partners that are the largest Russian and foreign companies in the oil and gas, steel, power generation, investment as well as banking sectors.
Meeting of the International Advisory Board of the Moscow School of Management
From Dmitry Medvedev’s opening remarks:
Dmitry Medvedev’s opening remarks at a meeting of the International Advisory Board of the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo
Speaking in my capacity as head of the International Advisory Board, I would like to thank everyone who placed their trust in this project 11 years ago and helped implement it. Over the 11 years since its establishment, the Skolkovo School has graduated over 16,000 people, which is a very good figure indeed. So we can say that this project is a success.
The school has completed over 100 research projects, including some world-class business cases, which is gratifying. We believe that it is important that the school’s research and educational potential should be used for the improvement of public management and that the school should take part in drafting national strategic development plans.
The school is cooperating with 150 professors from the world’s leading business schools and is also developing strategic partnership with the Business School of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Yale School of Management, IMD Business School in Switzerland as well as ESMT Berlin business school.
Meeting of the International Advisory Board of the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo
I wholeheartedly support the school’s intention to join international associations of business schools so as to reaffirm its education and research standards.
The Skolkovo Education Development Centre is one more promising project, which provides for developing closer cooperation between the Skolkovo School of Management, the New Economic School and the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology without infringing on their independence.
One of the research projects conducted at the school has shown that Russian companies have four times fewer managers with BA degrees than foreign companies. Only around 10 percent of our managers have this degree, compared to 43 percent in foreign companies. Fifty percent fewer Russian employees receive onsite education. In other words, this centre can train management personnel not only for the private sector, which is of utmost importance, but also possibly for the system of public management. The more people who can master how to think differently after receiving this type of education, the more chance Russia will have for innovative breakthroughs.
Implementing the comprehensive project to create and develop a campus of the St Petersburg National Research University of Information Technology, Engineering and Optical Design17 October 2017 13:20
The campus of the St Petersburg National Research University of Information Technology, Engineering and Optical Design will be built in the Pushkin District of St Petersburg. The campus will include research centres, laboratories, classrooms, housing, and other buildings. The new campus will accommodate 3,600 students, 50 international laboratories, and at least five innovation-driven production facilities which will create 6,000 new high-skill jobs.
Reference
Prepared by the Ministry of Communications.
The signed directive supports the proposal of the St Petersburg Government to implement an investment project in the city’s Pushkin District, providing, among other things, for the creation and development of a university campus of the federal state autonomous institution of higher education St Petersburg National Research University of Information Technology, Engineering and Optical Design (hereinafter referred to as “project” and “ITMO University,” respectively).
The project concept provides for building the ITMO University campus to include research centres, laboratories, classrooms, housing, and other buildings. The planned area under construction amounts to about 400,000 square metres.
In accordance with the project’s benchmarks, the new ITMO University campus will accommodate 3,600 students, 50 international laboratories, and at least five innovation-driven production facilities which will create 6,000 new high-skill jobs.
Approval was also granted to the proposal of the Ministry of Communications to create the joint stock company Highpark of the St Petersburg National Research University of Information Technology, Engineering and Optical Design to oversee the project’s implementation. It will have an authorised capital of 321 million roubles, fully owned by the federal government.
