Konstantin Parshin— Vice President of the Skolkovo Foundation, Executive Director of the Information Cluster
Prior to joining Skolkovo, he worked as a deputyDirector General, Director of New Business Development at ITAR-TASS, where he was responsible for the development strategy of the agency in the system of government bodies, public organizations and large businesses. He organized the development from scratch and the successful launch of a startup, the information-analytical product TASS-Business, tassbiz.ru.
Filter for startups, trends and subtechnologies
- There was a lot of talk about end-to-end technologies at CIPR - there is listWhich of them are the most advanced and interesting at the moment?
— To begin with, we need to understand the term "end-to-end technologies" itself.This is a fairly well-established value of any technology that is used in more than one industry.If you take the Internet, it's also an end-to-end technology.
And at different moments, they were all drivers of a new stage of development in one way or another.Usually, a sign of end-to-end technology is that the market very quickly begins to adopt and develop in completely different products, services, and industries.There is a phenomenon here that these nine end-to-end technologies and other end-to-end technologies are developing themselves.Because they are so interesting to the market and contain great potential that either those companies that once developed them, or a new generation of technology companies that have seen the potential of this end-to-end technology for themselves, comeSome of them become successful, some don't, but still the market pushesThese technologies are developing them into some new products and services.
- If they develop themselves, then without development institutes, would they also do it?
— Yes, in theory, they develop on their own, and the role of development institutions is largely supportive.It is very important, in my opinion, but we do not create end-to-end technologies ourselves.That is, we must track the trends that exist in the market and focus on supporting end-to-end technologies that have the greatest potential.One of the challenges for us is to correctly see these trends, catch them, and put them into the filters and technological priorities that our experts usein the selection of startups.
- And how often do you update these filters?
"On average, once a year, sometimes a little more often.
- And what has changed in your filters over the past two years?
"We've added quite a lot of what's being discussed here.That is, almost all end-to-end technologies from the list, including artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain.It was clear that the market had been going in this direction for several yearsIn the past, we added computer vision, added the use of these technologies in specific industries, for example, education or medicine.That is, they reached the level of subtechnologies.
I believe that in this area, Skolkovo has one of the best centers of expertise on the market now, and in general, if you look at the portfolio of solutions of our participants, they are quite completeThe set of products for which there is a demand.That is why we believe that the Skolkovo Foundation is instrumentally very useful as a source of not just ideas, but already quite mature and ready-made technologies that belong to the category of end-to-end technologies and canIt is quite quick to find its application in projects, in industries, in regions.
- Are you looking for what exactly the Russian market, companies need, or are you still targeting Western markets that generate demand?
— The question is a bit controversial, who is ahead: the West or the East.
- Well, yes, the international market.
- If you take, for example, computervision, face recognition, leading companies are not in the West at all. Of course, our task is to focus on the best international level at the moment, to try to achieve it, and better to surpass it.
The rule of our experts isthat they answer including the question of comparison with international counterparts. We have a lot of potential projects that are submitted for the status of a participant and do not pass the examination, because experts believe that from an international point of view this is already a repetition of the path traveled, there is no innovation in the international sense. The argument that our task is to do it in Russia in the local market may be justified in some situations, but in most cases it will not. In order to create a truly successful IT product, you need to be competitive in the global market.
“Ideas cannot be patented in most cases.”
- Recently published study"Startup Barometer" - it states thatthe majority of startups in Russia either replicate existing technologies or do something that doesn't exist in Russia but already exists internationally. There are very few unique technologies that have potential. How difficult is it to find such startups?
— It is difficult, of course. The only thing is, I want you to understand me correctly. We do not require each company to prove that they will become the next Facebook.
- Well, it is impossible to predict.
— Firstly, it is impossible to predict, secondly, we do not require this. What is more important is compliance with the modern level, the niche of those technologies that this company wants to create or develop.
The second answer is, of course, commercializability.of this technology. Our experts always answer two types of questions: innovativeness and the potential of the innovative development. The second is commercializability. And in any case, this is not even a Skolkovo question. Any investor will always ask this company: guys, show me how you differ from competitors, where is the long-term competitive advantage. We ask the same questions. Therefore, if there is a demand on the market for the repetition of some technologies or products that were created somewhere, I partly agree, such an element of marketing and product development exists, but at the same time these products are still differentiated. I know very few products that would be made as a carbon copy of some Western or Eastern analogue.
Ideas cannot be patented in most casescases. Why not welcome them? But in any case, we monitor the level of development. This should definitely not be yesterday. And, as a rule, all such products necessarily have some kind of their own peculiarity, know-how, special positioning that makes this product unique. A non-unique product is not viable in principle, regardless of whether it is a resident of Skolkovo or not.
Photo: CIPR
“Since we are in Innopolis, one cannot help asking: what is the competitive advantage of Skolkovo in this case, what can the Foundation offer to start-ups, what are the specifics?
- You know, this question is asked very often, andit usually comes from the media, not from startups. You and I must understand that for a country like ours, Innopolis, Skolkovo, similar centers being created in St. Petersburg and a number of other regions are still a drop in the ocean. Can you imagine how the innovation infrastructure is structured in Israel, for example?
- In Israel, a lot more startups.
- Where did they come from?There are few people - 20 times less than in our country, and the infrastructure is the same scale. Therefore, it is still very far from the level when we will really start competing for something. Rather, there is an opposite effect - the higher the presence of high-quality development institutions in the regions, the greater the chance that some ideas will be able to pass the most difficult, early stage of their development - to the first prototype and customer.
Our country is so arranged - many centersdecision-making are in the capitals, so companies can open their presence in Skolkovo and elsewhere. There are plenty of examples when the company developed in Innopolis, and then opened its representative office in Moscow. Or at the same time has the status of different legal entities. In fact, the same company is present in both locations.
We are extremely interested in the overall strategicAs a result, to create as many innovative startups in this country as possible so that a market demand for the consumption of these innovations is formed. Here we also have a common problem or a common task. It is about interaction with private corporations and state corporations. We are helping to sway market demand.
Business readiness for innovation, brain drain and technology exports
- Every state corporation now has a CDO position - do they directly understand that they need innovations? At what stage is this understanding and need for technology?
— The picture is very heterogeneous.Often, this is a question of the personality of a specific leader, a team that is ready to take some risks and has quite serious ambitions. And, as with any change management process, there is always a part of the market that runs faster, ahead, and there are conservatives who hold on to the status quo for as long as possible. Therefore, it is probably impossible to give a clear answer here in some percentage, temperature or other measurable parameter. But it is absolutely certain that the dynamics of the last, maybe not five, but two years are significantly different from what it was three or four years ago.
At least there is a demand to know,and what else happens. The request "Let's try, let's conduct a pilot project" is now heard from almost all players. Then there is a certain stage of development of the change management infrastructure of the customers themselves, that is, to what extent their core business is ready to include some innovations in basic technological processes, to what extent they are ready to look for financing mechanisms, scaling of new developments, to what extent they are ready for such a project-oriented approach to change management. Here, rather, it depends very much not even on the industry, but on the specific team. There are examples of customers that are role models for us - Gazprom Neft and generally a number of customers from the oil industry, SIBUR.
- Successful startups often leave after acceleration programs and support from development institutions. Do I need to change something in Russia so that they do not leave?
- In my opinion, something needs to be changed radically,We probably don’t need it. We just need to understand that this is a normal process. Some people leave, some come back later, and if we look at it in perspective, it’s not a fact that this is bad for the economy. Because this is a certain openness, an opportunity to bring some innovations that we don’t have, from abroad here. I can’t say that today the “brain drain”, the export of our intellectual resources is our problem. People leave largely because of the impossibility of self-realization or some everyday stories. In Innopolis, the conditions for living are quite normal. I think that the issue of brain drain is perhaps a little overestimated historically as a big problem.
Secondly, a very important point.Even if we look at situations when a company opens an office abroad and transfers some of its employees there, the other effect is much stronger. As a rule, it is still more profitable for these companies to develop on the territory of our country. Imagine another scenario. Yes, the company opened an office in Western Europe, America, reached large volumes, markets, but at the same time, several hundred jobs were created in Russia. I think that this is one of our target models, so that Russia develops as a technology supplier market, being their exporter.
And there really should be jobsit is most attractive to create in Russia. Here the question is not even about Skolkovo, but in general about state policy in the area of stimulating such models. Now this situation does not look very frightening, there are many such examples, so we are happy when a company manages to enter a large market, because we are almost sure: this will lead to the development of this area, including here, in Russia.
Let's not forget that the Russian one itselfthe market still represents a rather small share of the world market. Therefore, if we imagine that we want to create an advanced IT industry, focusing only on the domestic market, this task is simply not solved. There is the notorious example of Israel - there are startups there, the customers of which are the largest world giants located in America, Europe. This has significantly affected the labor market and the creation of new jobs in Israel itself - this is, rather, a more positive factor.