Sharing experiences and establishing a network are the most important component of innovation process General Director of Moscow Innovation Development Centre to Department of Science, Industrial Policy and Entrepreneurship of Moscow KONSTANTIN FOKIN talks about Moscow innovation infrastructure, the role of technology parks and interaction with foreign partners. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin set a challenging task - Moscow should rise to the 20 th position among the leading innovation cities of Europe and at least to the 50 th position among the leading innovation cities of the world by 2016. What steps are taken in order to meet this goal? Any innovation city may be decomposed into several very simple elements. First of all, it’s comfort and convenience for people living in it. It’s comfortable to live in a city with clean streets and no criminal activities, with a good educational system for children, elaborated logistics, in the city where people smile. The second element is availability of a certain critical mass of people, money, infrastructure, competences, educational and cultural institutions. Finally, a city should be convenient for business; simple rules clear to any entrepreneur should be in place. Companies should have a clear idea of how to start a business, how to deal with emerging problems. Moscow aims to make the city more comfortable: infrastructure is under constant development; therefore, the capital will hold higher positions in the ratings of innovation cities. Currently Moscow ranks 63 rd in the index of innovation cities. Why is that, taking into account all these conditions? It’s a question of an adequate evaluation. The situation of Moscow is much better than it’s presented. Such rank can be easily explained: in the context of global competition – for people, competences, resources – the information, including information which is not always accurate, is one of the instruments in a competitive battle. But we work in that direction, for example, Russia Today channel started broadcasting to deliver an impartial image of Russia, generally, and of Moscow, in particular. Besides, major efforts are made to inform the international community about changes that are in process, to include Moscow in a common information space, and in the past couple of years Moscow has significantly progressed in that respect. Moscow Open Innovations International Forum for Innovative Development and Global Entrepreneurship Congress can be given as examples. These events provoke profound interest of the international innovation community. An interactive map of innovative opportunities created by Innovation Development Center (IDC) includes 775 infrastructure facilities for entrepreneurship innovative development. What’ s your viewpoint on to what extent the already created environment corresponds to the international level? The infrastructure is very important for start and development of a young company. We have managed to create in Moscow more than favourable environment for innovative entrepreneurship, herewith, the number of new institutions increases every day. But Moscow is a large metropolis and, in spite of all possibilities of the Internet, emergent entrepreneurs don’t always see what’s what. IDC undertook the task of making the picture much more transparent and clear. We showed clearly and conveniently what infrastructure facilities exist, where you can find them and how you can cooperate with them, where you can rent technological equipment. How to evaluate demand for innovative solutions on the part of the state and Russian enterprises? Are the products of Russian innovation companies in demand in the world market? It’s not important for which market – Russian or international – any given solution was created. If a product is successful and duly “packed”, it will find use in any country. It’s the infrastructure task to reach out for interesting solutions and turn them into business. And it’s not essential where exactly – in Russia or abroad. But demand for some products and developments depends significantly on objective factors proper to any given country. There are different practices, different preferences of customers, finally, different climate. Coca-Cola varies slightly in different countries. Those residents of the Russian technology parks and incubators who managed to create a product in demand for any given market are very successful. There are hundreds of Russian high-tech companies working in the world that created unique developments. The Russian potential in the innovation sector is huge. We already see impressive success in IT sphere, in the area of biotechnologies and medicine, energy efficiency etc. What do Moscow technology parks lack in relation to those things that are available to our foreign colleagues? There’s always a lack of something and there is always something that can be done better. Now, and in 10 years. Another thing is important. At the moment we are far from the zero reference point. By this moment technology parks in Russia have been developing rapidly for about 10 years. However, in other countries the history of technology parks extends back over decades and they have some things that we can learn. They comprise such things as how to work with companies and how to create conditions for development, how to offer new services, help to enter markets etc. Such competences are always needed. That’s precisely the reason why Moscow technology parks become members of IASP. Sharing experience and establishing a network of foreign partners are the most important components of any innovation process. The role of a technology park may be life-changing for a small company that will find a partner more quickly, earn trust and reputation, establish the format of relations. These are tasks for which not only time but also international partnership is required. What are results of interaction between Russian technology parks and international representatives of innovation infrastructure? Russian companies often make incomplete solutions. It concerns some elements intended for integration with other products. For example, you can produce a phone screen, while the phone itself is produced in another country, and close contacts with those who will carry out integration are essential. You can develop and make a product prototype, which will turn out to be useless without contacts with the producers of the platform for this product. One of the difficulties for Russian innovation companies is absence of large integrators. That is why partnership expansion, which certainly exists today, is vital for Russian innovation companies and technology parks. Everyone understands that. IDC creates a new form of infrastructure in Moscow, namely, innovation MeetUp hub. What’s fundamental idea of this concept? Innovations are always a result of human communication. Someone has an idea, someone has capital needed to implement this idea, someone is an expert, and someone has equipment to make a prototype etc. Therefore, neutral platforms should be opened where people can meet, start a project and make deals. One of the functions of an innovation city is to provide such platforms. And they should be neutral. It’s important that various parties of the process could meet each other and cooperate without any pressure. We can draw an analogy with a traditional provision of platforms for culture and art by Soviet Union or city, they built clubs, libraries, circles of technical creativity etc. Basic public infrastructure in the XXI century is a business infrastructure, innovation hubs. API Mosсow was first such platform. We can see that thanks to it a number of new projects were created, investments flows appeared. The platform turned out to be very popular among active market members, but currently one API Mosсow platform hardly copes with the load. Next thing on the agenda is creation of the next innovation hub, which will be based in Skolkovo.
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