Skolkovo Valley?

Some people are not so impressed by Medvedev’s idea to build a Silicon Valley at Skolkovo.

Vladimir Babkin, an expert at the State Duma’s committee for science and technology, says the Skolkovo-Silicon Valley analogy is flawed from the very start.

“The Silicon Valley in California was created on the basis of universities,” he says. “It was a bottom-up growth. In Russia, it’s top down, and the goals are unclear.” (…)

Deputy Vladimir Babkin says the Skolkovo draft laws submitted to parliament contain many vague areas and say the structure appointed to manage the park is equally opaque.

“We must rebuild a high-tech industry, because this is the main client for new innovations. But there’s not a single word about that,” Babkin says. “The draft legislation provides details such as the fact that the fund will oversee sewage and water and heat supply, but it says nothing about the most important issue: how the profits will be distributed.”