Like many other countries, Russia is trying to build its own equivalent of Silicon Valley at Skolkovo on Moscow’s outskirts as Tech Crunch reports.
Across the world governments are trying to find a way to replicate Silicon Valley – from London’s Tech City to Australia’s Digital Sydney, the hope is they can create the same environment that built California’s success.
In some respects, Russia should be well placed to create their own Silicon Valley having had the same massive Cold War technology investments as the United Stated. The old Soviet system also left a deep scientific and mathematics education legacy.
As the Tech Crunch article points out though, the Russian financial and legal systems are working against the nation with most local startups looking at incorporating in offshore havens like Luxembourg and Cyprus rather than taking their chances with the local tax laws and courts.
If finance was the sole criteria for succeeding then Skolkovo would be almost guaranteed success with twenty billion US Dollars of private and government fundiing behind the project.
Funding alone though isn’t enough, and most industrial hubs are the result of happy accidents of transport, natural resources and skills being found in one region.
It might take more than a load of cash for Russia to build their own Silicon Valley, but with a shrinking and aging population the nation needs to find a way to diversify away from simply being an energy exporter.
Image courtesy of Skolkovo Foundation through Flickr