The theme of the plenary session is, Digital Economy. Society. Business. State.

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:

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…

More to be posted soon…

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.

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.

Dmitry Medvedev meets with Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group Jack Ma

17 October 2017 13:00 Skolkovo, Moscow Region

Excerpts from the transcript:

Maxim Oreshkin: Good afternoon, colleagues,

The Foreign Investment Advisory Council’s annual meeting was held today. It’s an important event where we can discuss issues facing companies that have invested significant amounts of money in the Russian market, and ways of changing regulations to improve the local business environment.

Today’s meeting was held in a generally positive atmosphere given that the Russian economy has begun to recover, and economic growth is underway. Companies can see this in their performance indicators.

An Ernst & Young study revealed an interesting fact, where the number of investment projects in Russia this year has reached an all-time high. We see this from the direct investment dynamics, which reached $14 billion in the first half of 2017. In other words, all numbers are telling us that foreign business is actively coming to Russia again and has a vision of long-term development goals for itself.

More to be posted soon…