The concept of time in Russia has a different meaning and metrics than elsewhere, not only with respect to the famous Moscow traffic, but in all other human aspects of life as well. But one thing is for sure: Russia is taking its first steps towards a free market economy and democracy. There is no going back, but there are both physical and emotional obstacles ahead.
Some experts say that Russia has a period of 20 years ahead that will decide if it is able to build a new economy. After two decades, the proven oil reserves will not be able to supply the whole country anymore. But government officials and politicians are being a little simple if they think they can build the new economy between the elections in a four-year period. Think about having the mission of building a new entrepreneurial culture and hundreds of new hi-tech companies in four years, and expecting to achieve high ROI merely with public funding. This is not realistic even in Houston, Stockholm or Bavaria, so how would it be possible in Russia. Pirjo Karhu has said “I want maximum results in a minimum time span”, but four years might be too much to demand in this case. That is, however, what our next guest is expected to achieve!
We met Sergey Kurilov, CEO of Technopark Skolkovo, to interview him about his task of leading the way towards modern Russia. Most say that this task is not the easiest, as there are not many who explicitly say or show that they believe in Skolkovo. Sergey seems to be a typical midfield player. He sees the whole game, plays in both directions, and is the most trusted person on the field. He knows what he is doing, and leads his team in the right direction.
At first we were given less than 30 minutes for the interview, but the conversation was fruitful when sharing the experiences, and in the end we had almost two hours to discuss and build a picture of the new Russia. Even though there are clear pitfalls and difficulties along the road, Sergey is very open and honest about what lies ahead. The truth is told loudly during the discussion, and facing this truth provides a good way to succeed in modernizing the country.
Sergey was born in St. Petersburg, graduated from there as a Master of Economics, made a career in consulting and, like many other of his generation, in the oil and gas industry. But let’s get Sergey’s view on the status of education Russia. Education is probably the most important factor in building a wealthier society, but Sergey is really worried about education in Russia: “Secondary school education is now awful, a disaster. We used to be multidisciplinary and have exams, which supported creativity, but today we have only one test with three disciplines. The tests have three possible answers, so it limits your thinking. Preparing for a test like that is like preparing for an exam where the answers are given. It’s another mindset.” Russian education used to be considered “top notch”. Students were expected to expand their thinking, thanks not only to a multidisciplinary approach, but also to the fact that students could have conversations during the exams and try to find different kinds of new solutions. This is a more creative approach than just having three answers in buckets.
Sergey didn’t want to leave any room for misunderstandings about his opinion on the current testing system: “Think about having an exam about the Winter War in1939. Was it a) good b) not good or c) a tragedy? What do you think the answer might be?” There cannot be a clearer way to describe the problems in the current school test system to a Finn than he stated. And he did it in a really warmhearted way.
You can sense that education is backwards rather than forwards, despite the efforts of the Ministry of Education. It is trying to increase the number of disciplines, and there are more higher education schools than there used to be, but the quality is just not good enough. “When I went to university, the quality of education was really bad, and I decided to take studies in Germany and the UK as well.” It looks like schools are facing even greater challenges than Skolkovo. Anyway, there are many competent scientists and strong academic roots in society, and Skolkovo should be able to benefit from that, and there are many private projects improving higher education. One is located on the same campus as Technopark at the University of Skolkovo. They have lecturers from the leading business schools, but it’s a very expensive way to run a university, so only a few people can afford to study there.
But in the end Sergey is still proud of this system that has originated from the Soviet system, because the universities have a really extensive selection of courses. The Russian education system is broader in scope than foreign systems, but not as deep.
“There is a huge gap between the technology the students get from university and their ability to start a career or company,” says Sergey, meaning that companies have to train young people for several more years before they can really be effective for them.
“We already have over 700 startups in Skolkovo, but we often forget our mission: to create an environment. Bring the right people, and an entrepreneurial culture, that’s all.” Sergey is convinced that there is no shorter or easier way to build the right culture. “Although India skipped land lines and went straight to cellular, I don’t think that we can skip things. We need the processes and education, be it IP rights or secure assets,” Sergey says.
“The major risks in Skolkovo are, as usual, in the field of expectations. The government is investing US$ 7 billion over the six years in Skolkovo, and they are expecting us to create exact scientific solutions and breakthrough technologies, not new businesses.” So this is what is expected, and fast. But the aims within Skolkovo itself are much broader. They are aiming at building a totally new and fresh entrepreneurial environment and teaching people how to make money through scientific solutions. Ambitions are really high, and matching the deep scientific world with highly commercial business targets will not be easy.
Skolkovo has been building relationships with universities that have hi-tech equipment for scientific research, but using the equipment is difficult in practice. To create new scientific solutions, Skolkovo has been investing in its own very hitech equipment, and that could be of great interest to foreign startups. We saw some state-of-the-art gadgets when visiting Technopark, something you do not see often in Finland. So the buildings, infrastructure and equipment are in place, the right culture is on the way, and we believe that it will happen, even if some people say that Technopark is too far away for entrepreneurs.
“Our mission is to take the initiative,” says Sergey. And in real life it can either irritate or motivate people around you. Skolkovo has been very active in taking the initiative: there are hundreds of companies working for the common goal, and there are clear signs that a new startup culture is about to be born. Sergey is very realistic and does not want to take any credit. As he said, that there is a very active entrepreneurial community developing in Kazan, and it will happen with or without Skolkovo.
What they have learned from other technology parks, innovation centers and start up communities is that it is all about the team. The Class A team can make a breakthrough with a Class B idea, but a Class B team can screw up a Class A idea. What we have seen in Skolkovo is that they have a really strong and competent team in place. Most of the ideas are still far from being commercial, and some of the ventures we have seen are far from conquering global markets, but they are bubbling under. A strong LIKE and thumbs up!
Konsu Magazine (.pdf file)