Viktor Vekselberg: We must learn how to capitalize our knowledge

Skolkovo Fund President Viktor Vekselberg talked on Hard Day's Night TV program last week about why Russian economy needs an innovation center, implementation of the project challenges and why it is improper to compare Skolkovo with Silicon Valley in the U.S. or Russian science cities.

Free Innovators City

The key topic of the program was what Skolkovo is and why it is considered to be a fundamentally new project that is different from both existing research areas of the country and well-known Silicon Valley in the U.S. often compared with the innovation city near Moscow.

Certainly, we have pretty good innovation cities like Novosibirsk science campus, Tomsk State University and Pushchino. There are a lot of them. But they have their own ways of research implementation, we're occupied with other things - V. Vekselberg said.

According to him, Skolkovo project goal is the creation of new environment for efficient innovation projects development, where each innovator will feel free and independent. There were no such projects in the country so far.

When we look into how it works – we’ve already got much - we will share our experience with other regions. There should be dozens of projects like Skolkovo in our country - the head of Skolkovo Fund said.

He reminded that social research projects tax reduction was achieved at the initial stage of Skolkovo Fund realization. That government's decision was applied in all IT companies, including small university business.

We are in the role of pioneers now. We will go through difficulties and all the negative comments to accumulate some called-for experience and knowledge - Victor Vekselberg said.

The territory of Skolkovo is not intended for factories and all plants that are associated with finished product realization. We want to achieve our goals in 7-10 years – he added.

Skolkovo should have its representation in the form of R&D-centers of big corporations, industrial leaders, and global players who can establish idea communications between our country and the global market - V. Vekselberg said.

Idea marketing

The participants of the program also discussed weak innovation implementation in Russia, in spite of high intellectual potential.

Innovation Center could become a knowledge and investment place. The mechanisms of commercialization and most effective ways of projects supporting will be worked out there.

What innovation economy is? This is the economy of knowledge. So we must learn how to capitalize our knowledge to get profits. And when I say that innovation is the economy of knowledge, I say that people must change to believe that they can make an innovative product in Russia, rather than go abroad - Viktor Vekselberg said.

He gave an example of IBM. Today the company receives a significant part of the multi-billion revenue not from computers sailing but from technology marketing.

Meanwhile in Russia, according to Mr. Vekselberg, some successful examples of technologies marketing, including nuclear energy and IT, can be found.

It is complicated, but necessary

The innovation center creators must explain to the public that Skolkovo project is required for making innovation development basis of Russian economy - Viktor Vekselberg said.

He admitted that a lot of people do not understand the significance of Skolkovo project and voiced the hope that uncertainty will go away within good results and everything will become clear.

Meanwhile, more than 350 companies have already got Moscow innovation campus resident status and it is planned that there will be about 500 of them by the end of the year.

He cited an example of a similar project in Singapore, where 30 large companies had been created within 15 years. This is a very serious, difficult, troublesome thing. But it is really necessary - V. Vekselberg said.