OREANDA-NEWS. May 05, 2011. Rostelecom’s Expert Innovation Council reviewed and approved the Company’s Innovative Development Program at its first meeting.

The main purpose of the Program is to form the infrastructure of a fixed-line universal telecommunications company on the basis of an operating company by developing and implementing innovative products and solutions, and to create the conditions for turning the company into a global service provider by 2015.

Rostelecom’s Innovative Development Program calls for four main areas of innovative development:

roll-out and implementation of new products, such as a single content management system, cloud application services (PaaS, SaaS, IaaS), distributed computational infrastructure, etc;

assimilating new technologies when building out transport networks, access networks and infocommunications infrastructure;

higher business efficiency due to comprehensive automation of internal operations, and also overall optimization of organizational and business activities to cut costs and raise competitive ability;

transitioning to a more high-tech, less energy-intensive and more eco-friendly equipment, which should help the company win leadership in the long-term outlook when it comes to cost control coupled with its high status of social responsibility.

The council reviewed Rostelecom’s finalized Innovative Development Program and discussed the main areas of the Program, including the participation of leading institutes of higher learning and R&D facilities, innovative companies, development institutions in the Program through various ways and means, including state/private partnership mechanisms.

In line with the Program, 0.5% of the Rostelecom’s total revenue in 2011 will be used to finance scientific research and experimental development works, while this percentage will rise to 2% by 2015.

The Program is to be financed both from the investment budget of the company itself and by drawing in outside sources of funding, mainly on the part of the state, and also from development institutions and the Program’s partners.

According to Vladimir Bondarik, who heads up the Expert Innovative Council/Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rostelecom, “the innovative development program of the merged Rostelecom was worked out taking into account global industry growth trends.” He went on to note that “there have never been such programs mapping out long-term innovative development of the telecommunications operator before this in the country”.  “Nowadays, Rostelecom leads the entire telecommunications industry, as a pacesetter and trailblazer”, Bondarik pointed out.

Rostelecom’s Expert Innovative Council is a collegial advisory body which has been tasked to analyze the main development trends of advanced telecom technology, key areas of industry innovation, R&D and experimental design work, and also to work out recommendations aimed at selecting the strategic areas of the company’s research and innovative activities.

The lineup of the Expert Council includes renowned Russian scientists and specialists with experience in venture investments:

I.R. Agamirzyan, general director of Russian Venture Company;

A.S. Adzhemov, rector of MTUSI, Candidate of Technical Sciences, professor;

V.N. Bondarik, deputy general director of Svyazinvest, Candidate of Technical Sciences;

A.V. Galitsky, managing partner of venture capital fund Almaz Capital Partners;

N.N. Kudryavtsev, rector of MFTI, correspondent member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ph.D. in Physics and Math, professor;

I.A. Sokolov, head of the Institute for Computer Science Problems of RAS, Candidate of Technical Sciences, RAS academician.

The Expert Council also invited Gennady I. Savin, RAS academician and member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Science and head of the inter-agency super computer center to join the council.