Earlier this month US citizen Kendrick White, a prominent figure in the Russian tech and venture scene, got involuntarily involved in a witch hunt targeting foreign citizens whose presence in Russia is judged “undesirable” in some political and media circles.
While civil high tech coooperation had thus far remained virtually unaffected by the international tensions, the recent incident is casting doubt on Russia’s capacity to keep it aside from its negative domestic political developments.
Who is Mr. White
Having settled to Nizhny Novgorod, a major Russian city with strong scientific activities, in the mid 1990s, White devoted the last 20 years of his professional life to help Russian researchers and entrepreneurs launch and grow their businesses.
Thus in the 1990s White managed a regional EBRD fund, investing $50 million in the Volga Region, and created one of the first Russian training centers for aspiring entrepreneurs.
In 2005, he founded and headed the investment and consulting company Marchmont Capital Partners. White is also behind Marchmont News, a bilingual online publication – and a partner of East-West Digital News – which offers a unique coverage of tech innovation in Russia’s regions.
Marchmont organized dozens of industry events across Russian regions to evangelize local business circles and regional governments about technology financing and commercialization.
In September 2013, the US businessman was appointed vice rector for innovation policy at the Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod (UNN) – becoming one of the few foreigners ever to receive a position at the very top of a leading Russian university’s administration.
In spite of the unfavorable international political context, White managed to keep developing ties with the University of Maryland and other US institutions – earning praise from high-ranking Russian officials until just weeks ago.
However on June 30, while vacationing with his family in Florida, White was suddenly dismissed.
McCarthyism à la russe
The university’s decision followed the broadcast of an incendiary TV program on June 28 on the state-run TV channel Rossiya. Presenting a draft bill targeting foreign citizens who “cause harm to Russia,” the show featured White among several other people who should be included, in the journalists’ opinion, in this “Stop List.”
The broadcast depicted White as being indirectly connected to US governement-sponsored organizations which aim to “destabilize Russia,” and hinted that the US businessman was busy wooing Russian students to move to the USA.
However, no precise fact was mentioned – except that pictures of American scientists had been hung on the walls of the Nizhny Novgorod university in White’s department.
“How could it happen that such a position [at a leading Russia university] was taken by a US citizen, a businessman from Washington, is still not clear,” the report concluded.
Dmitry Kiselyov, who runs this weekly show, is a Russian journalist and official whose radical anti-Western stance did not go unnoticed over the past few years. In March 2014, as the Ukrainian crisis bursted, Kiselyov reminded viewers that Russia could still “turn the US into radioactive dust.”
Officially the university’s decision to dismiss White came as the result of “the restructuring of the system of UNN’s innovation management connected with the need to strengthen its scientific component.”
However, an indirect confirmation of the political background of the decision came from university rector Evgeny Chuprunov himself. When asked by Russian daily Kommersant to comment on the decision, he answered laconically: “These are the times we are living in.”
A flurry of criticism
The university’s decision and its witch-hunt context received wide echo in the Russian and international media. One of the first to cover the incident, Kommersant cited Igor Efimov, dean of the faculty of biomedical engineering at George Washington University, who condemned this “politics of hysteria.”
Efimov said White’s firing was “a terrible mistake” especially as White had made connections for Russian students enabling them to show their inventions abroad and obtain patents.
Russia Beyond The Headlines (RBTH), a property of Russian government newspaper Rosiyskaya Gazeta, also cited researchers who sharply criticized the UNN’s decision.
Isak Froumin, director of the Institute of Education at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, characterized the Nizhny Novgorod incident as a “shot in the foot.”
If foreign experts already have thought 10 times before coming to work in Russia, they “will now think a hundred times,” Froumin said.
“To dismiss him after the broadcast is nonsense,” Alexei Kondrashov, a professor of the University of Michigan and the Moscow State University, told RBTH.
“Five years ago, the country allocated mega-grants to invite foreigners for a lot of money, but now they are being kicked out, it turns out,” he said. “Have they lost their minds?”
The story of the American vice rector is “not very good” indeed, according Sergei Markov, director of the Institute of Political Studies. The institute is considered loyal to the Kremlin. On the other hand, ”it is the public opinion that demands that the Russian authorities at all levels, including university rectors, raise suspicion against citizens of countries that support the terrorist policy of the Kiev authorities,” Markov told RBTH, referring to the US support of the Ukrainian government.
Formal complaint
Criticism came from venture circles, too. “This example shows how lawmakers’ prejudices multiplied by television’s propaganda muscle create an atmosphere of fear and distorted perceptions of reality,” said Arseniy Dabbakh, Managing Partner of Moscow-based investment firm RMG Partners in an exchange with Marchmont News.
Characterizing White as being “in fact one of Russia’s most devoted patriots,” Dabbakh said it was “an honor to work with him.”
Kendrick White was also praised by Evgeny Bokov, director of the Start Invest business association in Nizhny Novgorod: “Before he arrived here the local business community hardly had any clear comprehension of what angel investors and VC funds were, and how peculiar the nurturing of high tech start-ups might be. It’s Kendrick’s first public lectures more than a decade ago that prompted many of the innovation investors and entrepreneurs that are successful today to give their hearts to this area,” the businessman recalled.
Going further than verbal protest, Russia’s National Association of Business Angels (NABA) filed a formal complaint with the head of state-run media holding VGTRK demanding that he launch an investigation into the controversial TV program.
As reported by The Moscow Times, the industry association argued that the program and its public fallout had dealt a significant blow to the reputations of White and Russia alike.
“Building a modern, globally competitive economy has been among the Russian government’s stated strategic priorities for the past couple of years. It’s impossible to build such an economy without active international cooperation,” which is compromised by programs like this, the organization’s open letter to Dobrodeyev stated.
International cooperation under threat
Last week, after considering transferring White to a new position, the Nizhny Novgorod university finally confirmed his dismissal.
A source with knowledge of the matter told East-West Digital News that White had not been featured in Kiselyov’s TV program inadvertently, but following specific instructions coming from some government circles.
“What is at stake is UNN’s cooperation with US universities, which White helped establish. His dismissal is a clear message that such cooperation is no more desirable,” this source said.
White told East-West Digital News that he expects the UNN’s cooperation with US universities to be stooped soon. Commenting on the matter, he added: “From my perspective, the broader issue here is to understand what role the Russian government would like to see its scientific and educational institutions play in our planet’s development in the 21st century. Russian science is well known across the world for its contribution to mankind and our human condition. Simultaneously, it is well understood within the global science community that advancements in scientific discoveries today are primarily made by interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaboration, across cities, across countries and across the world.”
“Any scientists who were to be disengaged from this global system would quickly find themselves isolated from the latest research discoveries and unable to continue advancing their own research as quickly as others. In this light, I believe that it is entirely in the interest of Russia’s long term development and engagement with the world to in fact seek to lower barriers to [international] collaboration,” the US businessman concluded.
This article was updated on July 20, following the news that the university ultimately confirmed White’s dismissal.
