Arkady Dvorkovich: “It is clear that today the world is facing an unprecedented crisis”

The current crisis creates new opportunities

“It is clear that today the world is facing an unprecedented crisis, and this is obvious based on the figures. Already at the moment, I think that more than 4 billion people have been subjected to quarantine restrictions in one way or another. The decline in foreign direct investment in the world has been more than 30%, and the revenue of multinational companies has decreased by more than a third. The most serious decline is observed in such industries as tourism and passenger air transportation, public catering, the oil and gas sector and energy, transport and mechanical engineering," said Arkady Dvorkovich, the chairman of Skolkovo Foundation and former Deputy Prime Minister of the Medvedev's government of Russia, at the plenary session of the international online forum Kazan Digital Week 2020.

But there is a plus in the crisis, the former deputy prime minister of Russia is sure: “There is a real boom in areas such as online education, telemedicine, delivery services, communication and video conferencing solutions, online games and entertainment. And for all of us, for businesses, for society, there is an obvious increase in demand for these developments, for these products and services. The crisis has also stimulated innovation in such areas as expert and diagnostic systems, for example, for automating MRI and CT scans, disinfection systems, individual monitoring and systems for monitoring people's contacts, video analytics systems, and testing systems in various fields.”

100 billion in revenue from 2.5k companies

The fact that the crisis creates new opportunities, according to Dvorkovich, can be seen by the example of Skolkovo.

“By the time of the current crisis, Skolkovo has already achieved some success. We believe them to be unprecedented for the period which Skolkovo exists. When I say Skolkovo, it is not just a territory in Moscow, it is the whole of Russia, including Innopolis, which is one of our largest partners. In general, we have 15 technoparks of regional operators in Russia, and we see that they are developing very quickly, and first of all, we are growing at the expense of the regions.”

Today, more than 2,500 startups provide services that earn more than 100 billion rubles in revenue and actively attract investment: for example, in 2019, they amounted to about 14 billion rubles.

Among Tatarstan partners, Dvorkovich highlighted Tatneft, KAMAZ and Zenit Bank.

The chairman of the foundation also boasted that one of the residents of the cluster of biomedical technologies — Kromis company has recently obtained a registration certificate of the ministry of healthcare of the Russian Federation for the release of the drug from the coronavirus Avifavir. In Kazan, it began to be used already in the summer in the treatment of patients with COVID-19.

“We are pleased that advanced regions, such as Tatarstan, are implementing appropriate digital technologies faster”

The trend of the future, according to Dvorkovich, is the digital transformation of economic sectors, primarily through the introduction of digital technologies in practical areas: “These are telemedicine solutions related to digital diagnostics, solutions related to the help of a doctor.”

Dvorkovich said that the existing regulatory systems and financial model in the healthcare sector do not meet the demand of modern businesses and modern technologies in healthcare: “We need a partnership with the state in order to change the regulation of the financial model and activate the healthcare sector before introducing such services. But a lot depends on the regions here. We are pleased that advanced regions, such as Tatarstan, Moscow, Ivanovo Oblast,a number of others, are implementing appropriate digital technologies faster.

Other areas include the robotisation of resource-intensive processes, the development of online commerce, and the service sector.

“The change in regulation is necessary to continue financial support, primarily to stimulate demand for innovative solutions, and to continue the development of venture financing. Today, unfortunately, this sphere is in crisis," Dvorkovich said.

Read a detailed report from the first day of Kazan Digital Week forum in Realnoe Vremya.