Michael Kalinichenko – General Director of StarForce Technologies
Investing in technology parks
A huge amount of money is allocated for the creation of technology parks, but the main funds go not to science and capacity development of specialists, but to the construction of the buildings themselves. Buildings for industrial parks are usually constructed outside the city, as there are property prices and use of buildings cost much cheaper.
In Russia, most of the technoparks are built outside the cities. Many beautiful buildings constructed by designer projects usually located in the places where there used to be a field.
In fact, funds invested in technology parks are not related to investing in the technologies themselves. As a result, a new district or a town was built. It would be more efficient to spend the money on orders, grants, equipment purchases, etc., what would be much useful in the future.
Communication problem
The main idea of technology parks is to gather together professionals. However, a historical example – the Russian Akademgorodok, that located in Novosibirsk (that is the largest industrial centre in Siberia) and built in the Soviet Union, tells the opposite.
The scientific centre was built far away from the largest cities of the Soviet Union – Moscow and Leningrad, in order to get away from the recognized scientific schools and existing authorities. By the way, the Russian Akademgorodok has located 20 km from the city centre of Novosibirsk.
After some time, Academgorodok became the world-famous scientific centre. At the first stage, expectations of the creators have surpassed: enthusiasts were eager to work there. The close-knit group of scientists showed quick and good results. But then the opposite situation happened. The main reason for the decline in the productivity of the centre was the isolation of the employees from the external environment.
Therefore, if the software companies are collected in one place, then in the short term it will bring good results, but as for the long term, there will be a situation similar to the occasion with Academgorodok that located in Novosibirsk.
Remote work vs. Office work
Recently, modern communication technologies have become an integral part of our life. Various messengers, Internet chat programs and emails have reduced long distances and helped to unite specialists from different corners of the world. Employees inclined to work from home more and more often, since this option is very convenient for them: they can fully control their working hours, and they do not need to spend their time on a trip to work. Due to the fact that IT-specialists began to work more remotely, their physical presence is not necessary for the office any more.
The development of digital communications has already created a system in which remote work has many advantages overwork in the office. To change the existing trend is very difficult because it is contrary to the existing economic and social conditions. Therefore, the statement that if a large number of programmers is collected in one place, then it will stimulate technological progress, is incorrect. In our times, messengers and other device in most cases have replaced the personal communication and interaction of employees in offices, and the working conditions, that IT-professionals are offered on the labour market, have been losing to remote work. In the modern world a high-class specialist is mobile and their working tool, a laptop, they can use absolutely anywhere. Therefore, technology parks are losing all other options of work by territory. Now in Russia, we see that the industrial parks that were built in the 2000s are basically rented out for offices on the outskirts of cities.
About StarForce Technologies
StarForce Technologies is a leading vendor of information protection, copy protection and code obfuscation solutions for software, electronic content and audio/video files. Since 2000, StarForce has been successfully developing and implementing its state-of-the-art security solutions, providing copyright and intellectual property protection worldwide.