Information technology and society: Information technology promotes development of innovative economy of Russia

October 31, 2013 Moscow hosted the opening ceremony of the International Forum “Open Innovations”.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Minister of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation Nikolai Nikiforov said: “According to the number of subscribers to broadband Internet Russia is the fifth in the world and takes the first place in Europe. Moreover, the number of Russian-speaking people throughout the world are so great that our native language is the second most popular on the Web. This is a positive basis for further development in our country, high-tech economy. Russia today is ever open to innovation”.

During his speech, the head of the Ministry of Communications said that the ministry attaches great importance to the development of the information technology industry, which should play an important role in the development of innovative economy in Russia. He recalled that last week, the Russian government adopted the “Strategy of development of the IT industry in Russia for 2014-2020 and until 2025”, which will define the vector of development of IT in Russia in the coming years.

Speaking at the plenary session of the Forum “National Strategy Leadership in the hyperlinked world”, Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev said: “We have adopted a strategy of innovative development of Russia until 2020. And it is expected that as a result of its implementation since 2015 innovation will add somewhere in the neighborhood of one percentage point in our economic growth”.

He further noted that in the country is formed the environment of support of innovative technologies.

“Today, in the industry we have around 350,000 highly skilled programmers, - said the Minister of Communications and Mass Media Nikolai Nikiforov. - Our task is to build a job training systems, to support scientific research in the IT field so that in the next five years, this number has doubled. This will affect all sectors of the economy, will create a foundation for innovation in virtually all directions”.

The Minister pointed out that the successful implementation of the strategy requires the solution of the important tasks of infrastructure - providing broadband Internet access for all citizens. “This is a significant amount of work to be done by the ministry”, - said Nikolai Nikiforov.