“For the past five years, Russia’s been building walls around its web and packing it with tech oligarchs, startup cities, face-finding algorithms, hacker hunters, and, of course, a few bears,” writes Ashlee Vance of Bloomberg Business Week in Hello World, a series of reports about inventors, scientists and technologists who shape our future around the …
Freedom House, a US-based NGO monitoring the progress or restriction of human freedoms as it perceives them around the globe, has published its most recent Freedom on the Net 2016 report, the sixth in its series. In its findings, the NGO assigns Russia the “not free” status, while the country was considered to be “partly free” and “relatively uncensored” …
Earlier this week Russian president Vladimir Putin said that, while new technologies such as Uber or Alibaba should not be demonized, they may still threaten the traditional economy in the future. “I believe that [new] business models are not a threat to existing ones. They represent a new way of organizing things which businesses consider as being …
Russia’s sovereign fund RDIF has “increased by several times” its investment in Hyperloop One, the Californian startup which aims to commercialize next-gen transportation technologies. The transaction — which was part of Hyperloop One’s latest round of funding last month — was revealed on Saturday at the APEC summit in Lima by the fund’s CEO Kirill Dmitriev. Dmitriev presented Dubai port operator DP World, which led the …
The Blockchain technology is attracting an increased interest from the Russian financial institutions and IT companies and may be poised to overcome skepticism from Russian regulators. This is perhaps not surprising, given Russia’s prominence in the technology sector with over 120,000 local programmers and continuing growth in e-commerce and online activities. However, certain legal obstacles may still pose challenges for …
Bear in Blockchain: Russia’s frosty attitudes to cryptocurrency thawing Read More
In a new illustration of the two countries’ willingness to strengthen their ties in the field of high technologies, the Russia-China Investment Fund (RCIF) and Chinese company TUS Holdings have agreed to establish a joint Russia-China Venture Fund (RCVF). Signed earlier this week, the partnership has just been announced by the RDIF, Russia’s sovereign fund, which created the …
Russia and China launch new joint tech investment fund Read More
The Internet Initiatives Development Fund (IIDF, or FRII in Russian) has teamed up with the Bauman Moscow State Technical University to create an Internet-of-Things (IoT) association in Russia. The association will be headed by Andrey Kolesnikov, who previoulsy managed the National Domain Name Coordination Center. The association intends to define a “roadmap” for the development of IoT in …
IIDF teams up with major technical university create IoT association in Russia Read More
A memorandum of understanding signed yesterday sees Russia’s National Settlement Depository (NSD) and the China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation Limited (CDSC) – both their respective countries’ central securities depositories – partner to develop blockchain applications in the post-trade space. The partnership was announced yesterday by the NSD, which has also engaged in a similar endeavor to develop blockchain solutions …
After South Africa, Russia’s Central Depository partners with China over blockchain Read More
The London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has finally decided not to resume operations in Russia next year. The matter had been discussed internally during the summer, as the profitability of the EBRD’s Russian projects was found to be higher than the average, while the state of mind of some of the bank’s shareholders …
EBRD will not resume funding for Russian projects in 2017 Read More
Over the past several months, Muscovites have been busy complaining on social media that their GPS-powered mobile apps are malfunctioning. Users of Yandex.Navigator have run into frequent problems, for example, watching their vehicles’ locations bounce all over the map. When the Pokemon Go craze arrived in Russia earlier this year, Moscow’s geolocation issues became truly …
Earlier this month Alexei Moiseev, the Deputy Finance Minister of the Russian Federation, stated that the spread of bitcoin in Russia does not represent a threat the country’s financial ecosystem, at its current rate of adoption. As such, the plan to ban the cryptocurrency is now paused. Moiseev had primarily spearheaded the Russian Finance Ministry’s …
The Russian bitcoin ban plan is on indefinite hold Read More
As Russia has been “pivoting to the East” over the past few years, a study released earlier this month aims to describe the two countries’ innovation ecosystems, and analyze the new links being established between them. The report, named “China and Russia: Innovation and Entrepreneurship,” is a joint project by the Skolkovo Foundation on the …
Pioneering report highlights Chinese and Russian innovation systems and their growing ties Read More
