What will be the markets and technologies in 10 years
Get into the future
Andrey Konstantinov, "Russian Reporter" No. 14-2015The future is difficult to predict, but it can be created. The "agents of the future" who understand this act everywhere, even if not always as consistently and successfully as we would like. Recently, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives and a Russian venture company undertook the implementation of the National Technology Initiative – a program to form fundamentally new markets and create conditions for Russia's global technological leadership by 2035. What are they really counting on? With this question we came to Evgeny Kuznetsov, Deputy General Director of RVC
– I have the impression that we in Russia are always trying to establish an innovative system, and we always fail.
– I wouldn't say that. The modernization of Peter the Great was very effective. Another thing is to guess what it could ideally be… And Stalin's modernization gave a fairly successful industrial breakthrough, although it is wrong to call it "Stalinist". Plans for the construction of railways or GOELRO were created under the tsar, they simply did not have time to implement them. Russia developed very intensively before the revolution, and if it had been properly modernized, avoiding collectivization and a planned economy, the breakthrough would have been much greater than under Soviet rule. After all, at the beginning of the XX century, Russia was one of the world leaders in fundamental science. We have not had such a number of Nobel laureates, world-class scientists and people working on the very frontier of advanced technologies that created a global product, such as Sikorsky or Zvorykin, since then.
If we take the last fifteen years, then, indeed, we are trying to launch an innovative system – and, in general, it is slowly being launched. The problem, however, always turns out to be more complicated than expected. At first, everything was reduced to the fact that it was necessary to commercialize science, then it turned out that something else was missing. We remembered about creating an entrepreneurial environment, an ecosystem for innovative business – and something began to turn out. The number of successful startups has grown by an order of magnitude over the decade, as has the size of investments in the venture industry. The main unresolved issue today is the path from fundamental science to global markets.
– So you don't see any particular obstacle to the development of an innovative economy, which is characteristic of Russia?
– Our trouble is known – roads and fools. That is, there is a lack of coordination, coherence, and there are many people who look at the problem of innovation very narrowly. Another traditional Russian attack is that we have three controllers for one working. And any attempt by development institutions to move something is met with a disproportionate increase in control and verification efforts.
And about the narrow view, my favorite example is the matrix of technological priorities. It was installed many years ago, and still has not moved dramatically. The priorities of our innovation policy include the nuclear cluster, the space cluster – industries that were promising fifty years ago. By the beginning of our century, it was already clear that the main revolution taking place on the planet is digitalization, that is, IT in medicine, IT in energy, IT in industry and everywhere else. In the private sector, IT is primarily developing in our country, mainly investors carry money there.
The development of any industry is very rapid at the start, then quite stable, and then flat – that is, for every ruble of investment, we will already receive too small an increase in efficiency. And the world's major industries are being built in areas where exponential growth is taking place. And we were betting on those areas in which rapid development has long ended. The state mainly invests in industries where there have been no breakthroughs for decades, such as aircraft manufacturing. Here, of course, aviation fans can argue with me, but airplanes have not changed dramatically, this is a completely different pace of development compared to IT.
– Why is this happening?
There are no lobbyists in new industries, there are entrepreneurs. They are not very good at sharing resources, but they are able to break into empty zones. And in the old industries there are just a lot of lobbyists who have high ranks, authority and institutions. And they are winning the battle for government money. This is how we slide back into the previous technological order – this is our key problem.
The division of the future– And then how to get into a bright future?
– Now all the countries of the world are making certain bets: they choose priorities that they throw the most serious efforts and resources at in order to preserve and increase leadership in the future.
China has made a bet on engineering, industrial robotics, automation. And for advanced biotechnological research, cloning, genetic engineering. They act very quickly, taking advantage of the ethical restrictions of other countries. In Europe, GMOs are questionable – China lives entirely on GMOs. In Europe, they are thinking whether it is possible to clone people or make a genetic correction of the human genome, and the Chinese are already doing it. They have every chance to be the first to create this industry. It's the same with robots. We are used to China leading the way due to cheap labor. But it is getting more expensive, but now, when the creation of robotic factories begins, it suddenly turns out that the robotization of factories is also a Chinese specialization. The plant may be in the States, but China will make robots for it.
– And what did other countries bet on?
The UK, for example, has synthetic biology among its priorities. We are talking about the engineering of microorganisms with an artificially constructed genome, when each letter of the genome is specially selected. It is even difficult to call such an organism alive with certainty – after all, it is not a product of evolution, but an engineering object made of biological parts.
The USA relies on neuroscience, on new energy, on the same genomics. Germany has made a bet on "industry 4.0", that is, on the new principles of the organization of industrial production. Argentina relies on robotics in agriculture.
There is a division of the future, not yet established industries. It's time for us to place bets.
– And how can Russia choose the right bid?
– Bets can be placed in those areas where we already have a qualified workforce and recognition. For example, in the same IT – we have many talented programmers, Russian mathematics is still strong and highly regarded in the world. We can still become strong players in the emerging global markets associated with the concept of the "digital world" – where digitalization of transport, industry, medicine, and education takes place.
It is also obvious that it is necessary to rely on industries that will be vital for people: everything related to new approaches in medicine, with an increase in life expectancy, neuroscience. If this is not done, we will become extremely dependent on those who will possess such technologies. Now the paradigm of medicine is changing – the transition from "repair medicine" to "health medicine" begins, when we focus not on the treatment of diseases, but on their prevention.
This is a completely different approach to the organization of healthcare, so here all countries are in similar conditions, everyone starts from scratch. The giants of Silicon Valley now want to become healthcare giants. Google is buying up startups in the field of digital gene diagnostics. According to IBM, Watson's computer already plans treatment better than a doctor. Of course, doctors resist – for the existing medical corporation, this is a destructive technology that deprives the existing system of income. They try to keep new methods from reaching the market for as long as possible, and the key person making the decision was a doctor. There will be a real war going on for a long time, which gives us an additional chance to integrate into this market.
– But at the expense of what?
China, for example, when it made such catch-up modernization spurts, managed to quickly get ahead, playing without rules. They are not shy about learning, this is the key point. In Chinese culture, copying is generally considered a virtue, not a disadvantage. And they just copy all the good stuff. Not only the organization of universities and research centers, but even their names. While we are fighting for independence, for a unique path, for the Russian language in world science, the Chinese have declared that they want to become the largest English-speaking country.
The main engine of innovation– It turns out that in addition to the right bet, culture and organization are also important for the breakthrough?
- of course. China's success is primarily about management and organizational technologies. Japan, which became the flagship in the 1980s, having made a winning bet on microelectronics, could not stay in the lead, because it used the old model of economic organization, when innovations are created by an alliance of a strong university and a large corporation. But this is a losing approach for the XXI century – it is too slow. Now the main engine of innovation is technological entrepreneurship, which operates in an intermediate zone between science and big business. Japan was unable to switch to an entrepreneurial model of economic organization, and now Russia is trying to copy this dead-end path, when corporations directly negotiate with universities.
– And how should I?
– The development of the economy is an increase in the complexity of the system, an increase in the number of roles in the economy. Previously, it was believed that a scientist should think, and the company should order his work and introduce it into production. Now everything is more complicated. There are scientists who think. There are scientists and entrepreneurs who are thinking about how science can find a commercial application. There are technology entrepreneurs who know the market, know how to work with both science and investment money. There are managers who manage the technology divisions of large companies – they know how to attract investments and roughly understand what technology entrepreneurs are saying. There is a top management of a large business who understands that without innovation, without dynamics, it is impossible to move on. That is, there are significantly more roles, and this flexibility of the labor distribution system determines success.
When we were engaged in innovations in Russia, we invested primarily in the key point – in the activities of technological entrepreneurs. But both science and business must change. There should be people in science who are open to the market – professors and university managers are often very conservative people, catastrophically. On the other hand, corporations should have people who understand what startups are, why it is necessary not to squeeze technology from startups, but to negotiate with them, buy a team or enter into business. We work very hard in this clearing, we support corporate programs in the field of "open innovations" – this is such a model of working with the market, when technologies are developed not within the company, but are taken from the market. Our GenerationS startup competition this year is completely tailored to corporate acceleration: that is, we help partner companies find startups they are interested in and understand how to work with them further.
How to create a new market– What is the National Technology Initiative?
– NTI as an idea was born last year, during numerous expert discussions. This idea was developed and promoted by the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, it was approved by the President, and the VRK together with the ASI took up its implementation. NTI is a program for organizing the process of technological development, which focuses on three things. The first is the definition of future markets, their understanding. The second is the search for those entrepreneurs, leaders who want to play a role in this market. And the third is the creation of a maximum–favored-nation regime for these entrepreneurs and leaders, the removal of barriers, the formation of resources so that they can do what they have planned. This is a story about creating a community that is ready to take responsibility for the game in an emerging market. The essence of the NTI is to offer the state a vision, a roadmap for the future, to mobilize talented people united by this vision and create a most–favored-nation regime for them.
– It is clear what it means to create technology. But how to create a market?
– This is the key point. All our support for innovation traditionally follows the model of "technology implementation" – that is, someone has come up with something, let's now look for how to implement it. Another model has long prevailed in the world – the "market demand". That is, first you need to identify what the market needs.
The market is a complex object in which there are players, rules, standards, resources, tools, infrastructure... a lot of very special things. And when the market has not yet formed, the players on it have a lot of freedom, but also a lot of problems, because there are no necessary infrastructures.
There is a famous story about why we drive gasoline cars. More than a hundred years ago, electric and steam cars were better than gasoline cars. But gasoline could be bought everywhere in America, in every pharmacy (they have a pharmacy – it's like a shop). And there was much less electricity or steam. That is, there was an infrastructure thanks to which these self-propelled strollers could ride, which is why they won.
How is Tesla promoting electric cars now? Betting on gas stations, at the battery charging station. The creator of Tesla, Elon Musk, even threw out patents, made free access to technology so that there would be as many other electric vehicles as possible. Because the faster the infrastructure grows, the faster his business will go. Therefore, a new market is always a lot of problems and a lot of subjects, without which the market will not work.
There are still problems with legislation, such as, for example, with the delivery of goods by drones.
Drones are now at the peak of fashion, there are a lot of different kinds of applications for them. But for every positive use of the drone, there will be some kind of threat. Then the drone turns out to be on the lawn of the White House, then it will drag nuclear waste to the roof of the Prime Minister of Japan, then it will photograph naked neighbors on their lawn. How to act? Officials forbid everything just in case, the market is blocked. It is necessary to remove barriers, introduce rules, establish responsibility. Or a classic of the genre – a robotic car gets into an accident. Who is to blame – the owner of the car, the developer company, the author of the software that wrote the program for modeling behavior? Who should I present the invoice to? Many questions immediately arise, without solving which the market does not develop.
There are, of course, examples when a new market turned out to be so attractive and necessary that it broke through all barriers, being formed from scratch, without special state support – like the personal computer market. But this is not always the case. Sometimes new markets are created through very powerful patronage, huge government subsidies, such as, for example, the renewable electricity market in the United States. Now this energy is getting cheaper, but without a long subsidy, this would not have happened.
Markets of the Future– Within the framework of the NTI, a list of the nine most promising markets of the future was compiled.
What does this list tell us about the future?
– This list reflects two global megatrends. Almost all markets are digital, and all innovations are based on IT solutions. The second trend is life sciences. A new era in engineering is coming: we are moving to change and create life. Three markets are connected with transport – it is transport that is experiencing the greatest diffusion of IT solutions right now. And in general, we have a big country, huge transit corridors. Russia is lagging far behind in logistics issues, and logistics is now the most powerful engine of the world economy.
– In the names of all markets there is a root "net", that is, "network". Why?
– We proceed from the hypothesis that all the markets of the future will be arranged as network communities. The network community is a new, fundamentally important principle of the organization, which is beginning to dominate almost everywhere. We are moving from parties and social movements to communities: people who share some beliefs are coordinated through a network. We are moving from industrial giants working with suppliers to network coordination models, when people create customized products in small batches, coordinating through the network. Science is moving from huge academic structures to networks of laboratories or individual scientists working in different centers on a common task. Many companies, especially in new industries, are switching to the principles of network organization without the previous role of vertical management. The network model is the rules by which we will live for a very long time.
From fantasies to actions– Many people have heard about the NTI thanks to such an unusual event as the Foresight Fleet.
What is it and why?
– "Foresight Fleet" is a format developed by ASI at one time. This is a technology that allows you to organize communication of a large number of people in a short time so that they come to a common vision of the future and coordinate their action plans. In Russia, as everyone knows, there are three opinions on two people, our main problem is the ability to negotiate without pulling the blanket over ourselves. And foresight allows you to come to a common language, agree on common priorities and work them out in concrete steps.
– According to the results of the participants' voting, the NeuroNet market was recognized as the most promising. What businesses will thrive on it in ten years?
– Firstly, there will be huge markets associated with human-machine communication. We will control everything with the power of thought – the computer, the car, the entire home system. Even without commands, the system itself will understand what kind of music and light are needed now.
A big market that will appear in the very near future is the ability of the car to recognize the driver falling asleep. There are already many such startups. They have not yet become an industry standard, but they will, because this is one of the most common causes of severe accidents.
Huge hopes, of course, for telepathic communication of people. To begin with, the transfer of emotions. A correct understanding of the emotions of another person and adjusting to them is now an advantage of people with high emotional intelligence, and can become a mass phenomenon.
It will also be very important for a huge number of service robots to learn to understand a person, the meaning of what he said. Understanding meanings is a giant market that can rebuild the global economy. After all, a massive death of a huge number of traditional services and their replacement with robotic services will begin.
– So many ideas were expressed on "Forsyte"… Did you have any insights yourself on the ship?
– Yes, I had an epiphany there. When I listened to the report of the group on digital medicine and personal medicine, I realized for the first time what a profound revolution awaits us in medicine – comparable to the revolution that underground anatomy brought in the Middle Ages. Before the advent of anatomy, people imagined the structure of the body according to the ancient classics, talked about the ratio of bile and mucus. Only when anatomy appeared, it became clear that there are organs that can work correctly and incorrectly. And in general – medicine was born then. And now the same thing is happening. As soon as we approach a situation where there is an "Internet of organs", when our heart, pancreas, or other organ begins to monitor its condition itself, and we begin to see how its condition changes depending on medication, food, physical activity, emotions, instead of fantasies we get a picture of real connections in your body. We will finally understand for real what is happening in the "black box" of our body!
Many of our ideas about life are based on very limited or questionable data, and here we will get clear scientific data instead. Here is a good example: one of the enthusiasts of Big Data analysis hung up a lot of video cameras and microphones at home when his child was born, and for four years he recorded everything on a disk. After processing the data obtained, he found all the key points and critical situations in which the child was mastering speech. He saw how the main changes in consciousness occur, how they are related to motor skills, with parents. And it was absolutely different from all the classical performances!
That is, the revolution associated with the analysis of Big Data in medicine is preparing us for a completely different understanding of how man and humanity work. In a sense, science is preparing for a transition of the same scale that occurred in the Renaissance. Then we moved from fantasies to experiments, and now we are moving from individual experiments to a situation where the data source is monstrous arrays and textures that need to be able to work out. It will be a completely different science and a different knowledge.
– From the Foresight Fleet there are maps of the future and people charged with the impulse to build this future. But what's next?
– Now the most important thing begins, namely the transformation of these roadmaps into a permanent process of activity on them. I really hope that interesting projects will begin to form on this basis. I am almost sure that by the end of the year, six hundred members of the Foresight Fleet will turn into six thousand people who are passionate about these ideas. Neither managers nor officials will be able to implement the national technological initiative – it will be done by enthusiasts who will undertake the implementation of projects themselves. And our task is to bring them shells.
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16.06.2015