“The next Google may be born in Russia”

It has been a long time since “reboot” of relationships between Russia and the USA has been discussed. Summing up last year's visit to Russia, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.S. Ambassador to Moscow John Beyrle said that Russia and the United States go to the "new stage of relations."As for the Obama administration, he stressed that "we firmly intend to create a more constructive basis for cooperation." Visit to Moscow of the U.S. president also was extremely friendly, and following it there was almost no "corrective" statements of the Obama supporters, as it used to be before.

One year has passed away and we see the next step in rapprochement between the two countries and it is American delegation that visited Russia. The objectives of the visit could seem to be a bit fuzzy, taking into consideration composition of the delegation. The representatives of the world technical progress elite are so different that it’s difficult to see the principal of the composition of the delegation selection. You can see it yourself:


John Donahoe, the president and CEO of eBay Jack Dorsey, creator and Chairman of Twitter, CEO of Square

Jason Liebman, CEO and Chairman of Howcast

Padmasree Warrior, CTO of Cisco Systems

Esther Dyson, Chairman of EDventure

Shervin Pishevar, executive chairman and founder of Social Gaming Network

(SGN)

Mitchell Baker, Mozilla Foundation chairman

Ellis Rubinstein, president and CEO of New York Academy of Sciences.

Ashton Kutcher, actor, producer, CEO of Catalyst, the founder of fund The Demi and Ashton Foundation.


More over the representatives of U.S. Administration from Washington and the Embassy of the USA were the part of the delegation:

Jared Cohen, political planning coordinator, Special projects director, U.S. State department

Howard Solomon, director of Russian Affairs in the National Security Council

Janine Ellison, Senior Adviser on Bilateral presidential Commission

John Beyrle, the Ambassador of the USA

Matthias Mitman, minister counselor on economic issues

Russian media as well as American media, politics and politologists every so often speak about the efforts of building really friendly relationships between Russia and the USA

Even the Ambassador of the USA in Moscow stressed that the visit in Russia is a follow-up of the rapprochement process between two states that began last June:” The fact that we visited Academgorodok symbolizes shared desire of our presidents. We see the desire of your government and your scientists here in Academgorodok to extend co-operation in the most modern spheres of activity”.


Goals of the visit are the noblest ones. According to Wired magazine, Americans tend to share there experience with Russian authorities on various questions. I.e. effective use of new communicational technologies in corruption fighting; co-operation of communicational companies (mobile phone operators) with law-enforcement authorities in crime investigation; forming of “electronic government”, online education, online consulting on public health service questions for people who live in distant regions.

Visit to Moscow

In Moscow the U.S. delegation met with the deputy head of presidential administration Vladislav Surkov and presidential adviser Arkady Dvorkovich. Due to the fact that this year Russia planned to create "innograd" - equivalent of Silicon Valley in the U.S., Russian officials asked the American specialists about organization of such a business, how projects are selected for funding (in general, it is very correct and what is most important, timely questions at the stage when it is decided to build innograd and when money are allocated for this - editorial comment).

In addition, Moscow was scheduled meeting of leaders of American companies eBay, Twitter, Cisco Systems, EDventure Holdings, Mozilla with representatives of Russia's IT business. Such companies as "Yandex", "Kaspersky Lab", ABBYY, as well as Communications and Press Ministers were to represent Russian side. But unexpectedly, the U.S. delegation refused to meet, explaining this by saying that Moscow's traffic jams did not allow them to arrive in time to the next scheduled event. Supposedly, the meeting in the same composition will be held in the U.S., but the dates are not fixed. 


One of the results of the visit of the U.S. delegation was the decision to cooperate in the creation of "electronic government" in Russia. Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Sobyanin, and Anesh Chopra, head of technical department of the White House are responsible for the interaction in the sphere of IT. The U.S. side says: "Enish Chopra is going to work with Russia's Ministry of Communications to develop this site for Russia's government. Its purpose is to ensure that Russia's citizens can receive information about how government works and based on this information make their proposals that is, to use the data that will be posted on this site. Note that Russia is preparing the draft for quite long time, and some believe that U.S. involvement will facilitate the speedy conclusion of this.

Visit to Novosibirsk

After Moscow American delegation went to Novosibirsk. Here they were met by Chairman of the SB RAS Academician A. Aseev, his deputies, academics, V.Vlasov, V. Kuleshov, R. Sagdeev, M. Epov, Chief Scientific Secretary of the SB RAS, Corresponding Member of RAS N.Lyakhov, members and corresponding members of RAS, Vice-Governor of Novosibirsk Region G.Sapozhnikov and State Duma Deputy .Ponomarev.


According to the Public Relations Center of SB RAS, American visitors learned about the structure, capabilities and core research areas of SB RAS. "The presentation of A.L.Aseev put particular emphasis on international cooperation, including with the United States. In particular, the country ranks third in the number of visits by Siberian scientists, trailing only Germany and China." The most active in cooperation with the United States was, according to Mr. Aseeva, Budker ‘s Institute of Nuclear Physics Kutateladze‘s Institute of Thermal Physics, Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine, Institute of Automatics and Electrometry. Cooperation is very different: supply of plants for the study of synchrotron radiation and free electron lasers, and getting on near- Earth orbit of new semiconductor materials. In an open conversation the main problem hindering the full scientific collaboration was found out. It is the difficulty and duration of obtaining U.S. visas for Russia's researchers, moreover because of the absence of Novosibirsk any representative of this country, said Andrew Sobolewski.


The U.S. delegation visited the construction of Technopark in the Novosibirsk Academgorodok, met with representatives of local innovative companies: SFM, Uniscan and Softlab-NSK. Padmasri Warrior, chief technology officer of Cisco Systems commented: "I was in the company Softlab-NSK, I have been very impressed with their multimedia devices, delivery systems for video transmission. Cisco Systems opened in Russia the Fund for business development, and institution for entrepreneurs, it helps the whole Russia. "

Ellis Rubinstein, president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences: "We also visited the enterprise SFM, they have developed an original system of delivering medicines into the body and being a nonexpert in this field, found the idea very interesting. I was very surprised that they did not communicate with other academics, with companies developing this technology. They do need to go to the world stage, to establish a dialogue with science and business, which may approve their technology and help them in further development. And one of the things that we can offer them is to help meet those who can contribute to the evaluation of their product and develop its production. As I’ve said before, there are a lot of talented people here, rich history of scientific developments, but, nevertheless, all that remains here, but it must enter the world stage. "


There was also a meeting with students, and this was probably the most warm and lively event of the visit. Students not only asked the guests "smart" (as organizers of the event strongly urged them) questions and talked about how the future of the world would look like, but also took autographs from Hollywood star and husband of Demi Moore Ashton Kutcher. The two sides were very satisfied with the meeting. Shervin Pishevar CEO of Social Gaming Network (SGN) commented on it: «I was stopped by three guys, approximately 20-21 year old. And then showed a T-shirt: to read the words, you need to look in the mirror. That's just the spirit we want to keep. These guys have ideas. They are energetic and like everything new. I have a friend in California; he also sells just such interesting T-shirts with various pictures. And they bring him $ 50 million per year. I'll take it back, I'll show him. We wanted to support just such people, who are encouraged by their business. These young people who have dreams, hopes, who are energetic, this is the main objective for us that led us to come here from California. These guys are, incidentally outdoors, I am ready to introduce them to press. «But the guys did not catch the interest of journalists as apposed to Shervin Pishevar.


All representatives of welcoming party were interested in the question why delegation drew its attention to Novosibirsk. Esther Dyson, chairman of the company EDventure, added: "I've been doing business in Russia during the last 20 years, but this work was conducted in Moscow. In Novosibirsk I was struck by the level of business power. Needless to say, we heard an interesting statistics. 34% of business here is a small business. In Moscow everything is different. Eminent specialists, who are here, do not go to large companies such as “Gazprom”. They can open their own businesses. We are just looking for such enterprising people who do not want to work in the office, and we saw them here. We hope to come back here again. "


John Donahoe, president and CEO of eBay: "You know, my impression is that this area has all the necessary ingredients for success: the power, very experienced engineers, talented people. What is missing is the organization that would help to realize their potential. Technopark will unite them and will allow working in a collaborative atmosphere. The opportunity to work for such large companies as “Intel ", eBay, Cisco Systems, or to create own small business on this basis will appear. Technopark has made a positive impression on me, you have very talented people! "Now the proper environment to ensure that they can apply their talents will be created."


Ellis Rubinstein, president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences, praised the academic qualification of Novosibirsk people, and expressed the hope that their achievements and ideas would become available to the world scientific community: "There are a lot of young engineers, scientists, they have great potential. It amazes me that the modern world is similar toon the world of the XV century, when the various cities were competing for the leadership. Now cities are also in competition and are hunting for talented people. It's Shanghai, Beijing, New York, New Delhi. Novosibirsk wants to be one of those cities, which tries to attract professionals, that is, to enter into this century. To achieve this, we must provide an environment in which young professionals will not be isolated from the outside world. We will try to help them to be included in an international network in two ways. First, to provide your people with the possibility physically to attend these meetings, which occur in different countries, and to hold such meetings here in Novosibirsk. Secondly, it is possible to use the Internet to make contact with their counterparts around the world, to share ideas, to find out what's really happening in the world. I hope our Government will encourage such interaction, for Novosibirsk to become not only famous Siberian city, but a world-class city."

After meeting with businessmen the Americans have come to the logical conclusion that everything is not so good at the local level with investment capital. Nevertheless, they believe that the ideas and developments which are of local engineers and scientists surely must be implemented. It is anticipated that this will special venture capital funds will be created, which may contribute to the development of small business in Siberia.

The issue of funding hung in the air throughout the visit of representatives of major IT-companies. Members of the delegation commented: "The question was asked about the money. Will it be American money?" The fact is that money is absolutely necessary, because there are a lot of great ideas. But to make these ideas come to life, it is necessary that they be brought into action. This is a difficult task, and some American companies who are here already help in this matter, in particular, Microsoft and Cisco Systems. As for the money, Russia is not hard pressed for it. What is missing is the experience of a certain type. Maybe this could be a sphere in which America could help”.

Answering the question what is the point of cooperation and transfer of experience of our American colleagues, the delegates gave the example of a project Text for babies, which has been successful in the U.S. and which can be run in Russia. The main point is that with the help of text messages (SMS) to support the health of pregnant women. They receive an sms question about their state of health, and the child's health, for example, what is its weight, whether it is moving? If the answer is in the parameters of acceptable, it would mean that everything is ok. If not, then the system gives advice. Of course, this is not a doctor, but, nevertheless, she finds the problems that may arise. Such a system could help women who live in remote areas where there is practically no access to the Internet, but most have cell phones.

Speaking about cooperation between Russia and the United States and the program of Text for babies in particular, Mitchell Baker, CEO of Mozilla, said: "Text for babies - it is a very specific example, but during the negotiations other, broader topics were also discussed: Problems of obtaining visas, the issue of exchange between scientists. We will give recommendations to the Presidential Commission. The need for mentoring, creating of a platform for small businesses was also discussed, and this can be done by using all possibilities of social networking. Creating of partnership organizations on the basis of private and government sector was also discussed. I would like to stress that these are only some topics that we intend to include in our recommendations and advice to the Presidential Commission”.


The participants of the meeting also discussed prospects of Russian companies entering the U.S. market. Sherwin Peshawar, CEO of Social Gaming Network (SGN), is optimistic about the future: "Russia has the potential, and perhaps the next Google will be born here. Maybe he will be named differently, for instance Ruugle, but the potential is giant one. Sergey Brin is also Russian. Now small organizations which consist of 2-3 people are already working in Russia. They supply the global market with different games millions of copies of which are sold in the U.S., and around the world. I think this trend will be developed, and our task is to find a way to work more closely with them. I think it will happen. "


Esther Dyson, chairman of the company Edventure, adds: "It's already happening. There are companies that have already entered the U.S. market - Parallels (SWsoft). In Russia very good antivirus programs have been developing. It creates commercial areas that work well."


The visit of the Americans is perceived differently. In Novosibirsk, for example, some hope that it can really contribute to the development of small business and science, and even the fact that "innograd" will be built in Siberia, on the basis of the Novosibirsk Technopark. Others believe that "we are able to use SMS and the Internet without any other’s help." Well, whether any results will be or not we shall see it in the near future.


Author: Alla Arshinova

Source: www.computerra.ru