Historically, we have good relationships with regional authorities. I am personally delighted with the authority represented by Oksana Vilalyevna Kozlovskaya. Some other people, who are sincerely striving for changes and fundamentally comprehend what should be done, can be mentioned. I would say that in this regard here, in Tomsk, we have a good atmosphere. For instance, the forum itself is aimed at involving the youth, providing PR for innovation activity, creating an attractive atmosphere for it. Correspondently, we advocate the authority views on it and understand that it should be fulfilled. But as a company, we don’t need it, while we are “widely promoted”, we don’t work with Tomsk companies, cooperation, market, we sell almost nothing in Tomsk. You have probably heard about “gazelle” notion, devised by American economist David Birch in 80-s. This notion denotes dynamic fast-growing companies. According to his research, 4% of such companies provide 70% of working places. In Expert magazine issued in April a Russian market research is published and there are some interesting results. It appeared that in Russia there are 8 – 12% of such enterprises if calculating according to the same principals. Nice article, very optimistic one. These enterprises turned to be a center, a kind of crystallization; I can prove it judging by my own experience. As the enterprises grow, they captivate more and more companies, which also start working, modernizing, changing equipment, processes, and products.

How does engineering activity itself and requirements for an engineer change today?

What is engineer-radioelectronic today? He is both software programmer and microelectronic, he is also a specialist in algorithms, who works out those complicated algorithms that are further “implemented” in the product. There should be fundamentality. We should bring the title of engineer back and praise it, while previously we were told that there is no need in engineers, inversely — we needed marketing specialists, lawyers etc. This situation should be changed, however it is a complicated issue, while we deal with a long chain, which begins at a school level. In other words education and motivation should start at school. It’s essentially to instill that engineering process is something to get teeth into. I remember the times when we had such landmarks as space, Yuriy Gagarin, military; there was definitely a room for improvement.

Which stages in your company life and activity could you distinguish?

I would say that we didn’t have such stages. Although there were 8 of us at the very beginning, we understood that we would produce everything we worked out. In our field it is impossible to place stake on purely developing. It’s essential that the developing should result in a sample, then – in a production sample and in eventually in gaining revenues from the production. But it makes a great difference to establish a production infrastructure. However, we have established and continue to establish it.

What requirement does innovation market place today for its participants?

Adequacy, decency, commitment. There are definitely very common words. If you don’t work on the turn of latest achievements, tomorrow you will get bounce from the market. In our field if we do not attach to the world standards, we will automatically drop out in few years. That is why we should constantly renew our production.