Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich believes this month’s Open Innovations forum closely resembles the Skolkovo project – it provides a space for physical interactions between stakeholders that cannot be replaced by remote correspondence.
Open Innovations 2014 will take place at the Moscow Technopolis on October 14-16 and will be headlined by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his Chinese counterpart, Li Keqiang.
Dvorkovich praised the format of the forum, which organizers including the Skolkovo Foundation hope will stimulate a wealth of trade between Russia and China, among other partners.
“You can’t replace physical socializing with something else. This is precisely what helps create an atmosphere of trust, it’s what helps create real connections, real contact, and, at the end of the day, it’s what helps create long-term agreements. You can’t get around it,” Dvorkovich said.
Dvorkovich spoke at the Moscow-Beijing video conference.
“Skolkovo is also this kind of permanent platform, and will be even more so when all of the infrastructure is built,” he added.
Referring to Skolkovo, whose innovation center is already partially functioning and due to be complete by 2020, Dvorkovich said: “When we were thinking about building it, we decided that even with all the communications possibilities that exist, you still need a contact environment.
Dvorkovich was speaking Tuesday at a Moscow-Beijing video conference at the state Rossiya Segodnya news agency in the Russian capital.
The Skolkovo Innovation Center is a 400 hectare plot just outside Moscow that is to house hundreds of startups developing innovative technologies (currently numbering over 1,000), a Technopark, and the Skolkovo Institute of Technology (Skoltech), a new graduate research University established in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Also including residential, retail and entertainment zones, the innovation center is to be a key driver of growth in Russia and help diversify the country’s economy.