National
technology
initiative

The global technological revolution replaces the existing sectors and creates new markets. Most Western technology strategies are using the year of 2035 as a key point: they allocate the nearest ten years for completion of technological solutions and for launching new products in the market, and the following ten years will be used for sharing the world market and for substitution of existing technologies. For instances, there is not a single major automobile company that would invest into an internal combustion engine or into a human driver after 2025 – all of them are preparing for unmanned electric transport. But we continue to invest into the construction of an industry, that has to live 10 years and that is controlled by foreign manufacturers who do not intend to transfer to us the intellectual property for the key competences of the future market.

Why does the names of all the markets includes the word “net”, i.e. “network”? All the new emerging market either use the physical infrastructure of Internet either its protocols or they are built in its likeness. This principle will be used for operation of “smart networks” linking a number of energy producers and consumers – i.e. EnergyNet. Thus the transport systems of the future – AeroNet, AutoNet and MariNet – will be organized. Even conservative markets, such as agricultural machinery, are being transformed into networks of cyber-physical devices owned by the manufactures, leased to farmers and updated under a software license. It means that all the markets of the future will be also networks.

Why these nine? We don’t believe there may be a comprehensive model to describe the future, and our formula is a combination of system analysis and leadership energy. In the pilot work on the NTI roadmaps, we bet on obvious markets, where we can see similar movements in other countries, and where there are strong leaders and communities here in Russia. The list of markets is not exhaustive, and we are planning to start working on new markets every year. If we see that we have missed some significant market, we will start working thereon in 2016.

Those markets that are highlighted for actual work, are organized according the following scheme:

• three of them relates the national security and system provision of the country with resources: this is the market of food (FoodNet), energy (EnergyNet) and safety (SafeNet)
• three of them relates to changes in the transport system: this is the market of unmanned automobile transport (AutoNet), air transport (AeroNet) and sea / river transport (MariNet)
• and, finally, three of them relates to the most important spheres of human life, where “crazy” technological changes occur: this is the market of “digital” health (HealthNet), new finances (FinNet) and neuro-communications (NeuroNet).

Technologies themselves mean nothing, if there is not demand for them. For this purpose, a market is usually needed – and if a technology is not demanded in the market, its development becomes difficult.

Surely, the approach through markets is not only possible. No less important is the vision through the issues of national security – thus many modern markets have evolved, from the energy and basic foodstuffs markets to the markets of cybersecurity and space launches. However, the maximum effect is achieved where the both tasks are being solved – meeting the market demands and ensuring the national security. As an example, we can cite the GLONASS project – this is at the same time the national security and in the area of geopositioning, and a very large market for those companies who have started working with it. Probably, it is through this prism that the foresight fleet 2016 will be organized.

If you believe that there is a new important market to be taken into account in the further work on the NTI, you should firstly answer yourself the following questions:

• Is there in this area an opportunity to create fundamentally new technological standards? (I.e. is this market a new one?)
• Is there in Russia a community of businessmen and scientists who share the idea of the possible emergence of such a market? (I.e. is there leadership energy?)
• Are there similar international projects or consortiums in the same area? (I.e. is there possible to find international partners with whom this market may be launched?)

If the answer to these questions is yes, we ask you to file to the ASI an application to include the new market, and we promise to organize a comprehensive public debate on such application and include it, in the case of a positive decision.

We believe that experiment of building the state capitalism in Russian has already shown the inefficiency of this model, and the future belongs to the models of public and private partnership. We generally cannot manage without the important role of the state even in new branches of the economy. It is demonstrated, for instance, by a struggle between Yandex and Google, occurring before our eyes. But relying upon only state giants only is unpromising, we need well-developed chains of suppliers and ecosystems of medium and small technological companies.

One of the key NTI markets is FoodNet, i.e. the food market, that solves the problem of more efficient production, delivery and processing of foodstuffs, taking into account the needs of big cities. This market is already emerging before our eyes and, although it will reach its maturity in 15-20 years, many solutions may be applied just now: for instance, robotization of dairy farms greatly increases the milk yield, the production quality control and the efficiency of delivery to the end user – and such a technology pays for itself in a very short period of time. Unfortunately, the end user is not aware of the majority of modern technological solutions and is not motivated to apply the same – and this is a consequence of the current model of state incentives in this area. That is why the state shall demonstrate new priorities to start to launch the technological renovation. Practice has shown that our country is able to quickly create entire sectors of agriculture – in less than 10 years, we have turned from importers to exporters of chicken meat. In line with this logic, by 2035 we may become leaders in a number of high-tech agricultural production areas.

Solving global problems is a possible strategy to achieve global leadership, through the prism of which it is essential to review all our technology initiatives. We have to make it in the framework of the project, including during the Foresight fleet.

This is one of the NTI’s key risks. However, the fact of selling companies to Russian state-owned companies having a global potential (such as Rostekhnologii) or even to international technology companies (such as Google) is not necessarily a bad thing – this is one of the market strategies in the innovation markets, which enables business creator to capitalize their efforts.

It is important to keep a part of new businesses that will decide to develop independently and challenge the existing giants in the struggle for new markets – just such companies may become the new global champions. The goal of the NTI is the maximum increase in the number of such companies which shall keep the potential of global growth. How to achieve this goal – we propose to decide it in the next few months, we are open for ideas and suggestions. One of such solutions may the practice of corporate spinoffs – major corporations should learn how to create their own venture funds and to identify prospective areas into separate business unit. Another solution shall be creation of “patent trolls” of the new generation in unoccupied niches. The third one shall be the practice of transferring IP to the country and fast growing of national champions under the state order, with predefined model of exports to the Asian markets. There are several options.

To implement the NTI, we want to use the successful mechanism of the National Business Initiative (NBI), which enables Russian to significantly improve its positions in the world business climate rankings (thus, in the Doing Business ranking, Russia demonstrated a record dynamics, climbing from the 124th to the 60th place in 2 years). The NBI is based on the following model: the roadmaps to improve the business climate are development under the ASI coordination; each roadmap is managed by a group consisting of businessmen and officials that shall prevent the roadmap from bureaucratic castration. At the same time, the NBI roadmaps are controlled at the top level of public authorities. A similar mechanism is put in the NTI basis.

This would mean that we have badly done our job. The principal decision on the NTI has been already adopted, the issue comes down to the forms of its implementation. We shall develop maps until we do it well.

The NTI is first of all people, and not a roof or a pocket. If for the success of your project you need only public money, probably, you shouldn’t participate in the NTI.

On the other hand, it is clear that for the success of the NTI we have to launch new scientific research and provide assistance to high-risk technological projects. That is why the NTI development involves the representatives of the Russian Science Foundation, the Russian Academy of Sciences, RVC, Skolkovo, the Assistance Fund, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Economic Development, who will implement the NTI’s priority in their policy to support new projects.

A set of institutional solutions required to launch a market shall be developed by the working group itself. However, we are not going to transform it into a lobbying process and predetermine these of other decisions. The final criterion shall be the possibility to create a market with a maximum growth potential, rather than taking into account the interests of certain players.

This is what we have to solve together while working on the NTI.

In the development of the national technology policy, it is essential to start it on the national level. The next step will be building systems of cooperation and consortiums with international partners, but at the start, this shall be a predominantly national issue.

In the development of the NTI roadmaps, we use the results of all principal international, national and corporate foresights in the relevant areas. The participants in the Foresight fleet for specific areas are deeply integrated into the international process of developing the future market standards. In particular, based on the Russian initiative “Education Foresight 2035”, in 2014 we launched the project named Global Education Futures, under which the education leaders from all over the world generate their vision and global standards for development of the new education markets to support the lifelong learning.

We believe that a number of mistakes in the scientific and technological development were due to noncritical adoption of western concepts-mem, beyond which there were marketing interests in the promotion of specific companies. It is fundamentally important for us to observe the “semantic hygiene” and to use the terms that refer to specific markets and technologies to focus on specific areas having potential for growth.

An example of noncritical attitude is the notion of the “smart city with centralized management”. Practice shows that we face an attempt of imposing super-expensive technological solutions, whereas the most efficient solutions are those of supporting de-centralized management supported by local communities.

When in 1932 the rocket and space project was launched, the country was in a much less advantageous position – but it coped with the task. Even in worst scenario, we are doomed to renovate and develop our economy – unless we simply have no future.

However, we hope that the process of developing our technology policy will be carried out in cooperation with major countries of the world, with which we have no isolation, and we have already started working on a number of standards, – these are China, India and other BRICS countries, as well as a number of fast-growing new economies. But we hope that the science will remain global, and no new “iron curtains” will be created therein. Russia continues numerous projected focused on global cooperation, rather than isolation, this is the program of “5 in top 100” for the leading Russian universities, this the “Global Education” program for training specialists in the leading educational institutions worldwide with their return to the homeland, the Big Science project, and other.

According to our definition, new markets differ from the existing ones by the fact that they have no established international technology standards. At the same time, we must understand that in a number of technology markets – including in Internet – the U.S. position is too dominant, and this is not good enough for other economies. The common position of the BRICS countries is that the standards for the next-generation markets should not be an Americano- and Euro-centric one, and that truly global standard should emerge.

We see the urgency of the task to build truly global standard for all the BRICS countries. That is why we immediately start dialog with them on this issues, to be able to mutually take into account our national interests – at least, in the format of the “second standard”, that may be based on the open architecture principles. We do not limit the participation of the U.S. and the EU countries in this dialog, but it should be based on general rules. And over time, it is likely that a condition of admission to the BRICS countries’ market will be the very ability to meet the formulated standards – just as it occurs with the admission to the markets of the European Union and the North America.

The NTI does use the results of the scientific and technological forecast. Its co-authors work in all the NTI groups.

The most valuable property of a businessmen is his practical experience, which can be acquired only in fight. If we don’t let into battle all those who have once lost, we shall have no fighters. At the same time, we have to consider the achievements of each leader, including scientific and social ones, his or her ability to recover from defeats.

The NTI organizes its work based on the future and the market needs. The bet on the backlogs which has served as a basis of the scientific and technology policy in recent decades, has already shown to be ineffective. We cannot endlessly rely on the Soviet experience, it’s time to create new backlogs where it is possible to make the maximum use of their potential.