Moderators:
Pavel Luksha, economist and business consultant,
Elena Evrafova, chief editor of Harvard Business Review – Russia

Innovation is one of the most controversial themes in modern Russia. On the one hand, critics continuously debate about the low level of innovation in the Russian economy. On the other hand, in the past twenty years Russia originated whole branches of innovative and commercially successful products (for example ICT or biotechnologies). Besides, Russia traditionally is the leader in the field of “soft” technologies (pedagogics, psychology, etc.).

The full transition of Russia to an innovative way of development will be possible if two conditions are met: first, the definition of priorities with respect to the direction innovation should take, and secondly, the creation of a favorable environment for the creation and concretization of innovations. The purpose of this session – to understand how it would be possible to create the described conditions and who could take on the responsibility for solving these problems.

In particular, we plan to discuss the following questions:

• What are the priorities in innovation development (branches, directions)? Who can determine them?
• Innovation – is this an elite or mass driven phenomenon? How can we make sure that creative potential and talent finds the right investment resources? How can we guarantee that correct decisions are repeated?
• How can we generate an environment favorable for innovations to arise and prosper? Should business and educational establishments become active players in the formation of this environment?
• In what ways can the different participants in the innovation process formulate inquiries to each other? What are the necessary mechanisms and interfaces?
• Is it necessary to expand the concept of innovation? Should we give more importance to social and administrative innovations or to technological? Can there be in Russia a platform for the creation of new social and administrative technologies? What are the conditions for the realization of commercially successful global projects?
• Is there « a Russian model » for innovation? Is there a link between Russian innovations and specific Russian traditions and culture? Is it possible that global breakthrough innovations may arise as solutions of Russia’s specific problems?

Confirmed participants

• Sergey Belousov, founder and CEO of Parallels
• Sergey Vychodzev, president of VELLE, co-owner of the brands “Invite” and “Bistrov”
• Alexander Galizky, general director of Almaz Capital, venture capitalist
• Vladimir Dolgov, head of Google Russia
• Alan Kantrow, head of the Center for infrastructure research at Skolkovo school of management
• Evgeny Kaspersky, founder of Kaspersky Labs
• Lev Lyashko, founder of the network MAN “Future Intellect”
• Andrey Sviridenko, founder of Spirit DSP
• Ilya Popov, CEO of Marmelade Media, producer of ‘Smeshariki’ project
• Anton Nikitin, new media director of MuzTV
• Anton Yanovsky, project director of Russian technology transfer network