Development of the Russian IT sphere

The Russian Software Forum: Effective Solutions for Data Economy was held as part of the conference programme of Russian Week of High Technologies 2024. The event was organised by EXPOCENTRE AO, the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, the Russian Ministry of Defence, the Russian State Duma Committee on Science and Higher Education, the Competence Center of Import Substitution in the ICT Sector, the Russian Software Products Association “Russian Software”.

The forum visitors were able to learn what support measures IT companies can count on in the coming years, what areas of development of Russian radio-electronic products are priorities, how the import substitution of software and program apparatus complex (PAC) in the public sector is going on, and much more.

The event was moderated by Ilya Massukh, Director of Competence Center of Import Substitution in the ICT Sector, and Vladimir Kononov, Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Science and Higher Education.

In his welcome speech, Vladimir Kononov mentioned that seven years ago the talk about the introduction of Russian software had already been raised, but the sponsor of this initiative was the Western company Microsoft. Now everything has changed, Vladimir Kononov notes, and there is no trace of that naivety left and today we are proud to say that our domestic software developed by Russian companies is in many ways superior to Western software. Our IT companies still have a lot of work to do, but overcoming these difficulties strengthens our country.

Ilya Massukh, in turn, spoke about the factors and barriers of software and PAC import substitution. He emphasised that unfriendly countries had not succeeded in putting us out of the industry: the Russian IT industry continued to develop perfectly. In addition, our partners, such as China, India, and the UAE, have started to actively study Russian experience in order to learn how to better resist sanctions pressure on its basis.

Vladimir Dozhdev, Director of the Digital Technologies Department at the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, pointed out that there was now a convergence of customer and developer, including through more active formation of product requirements by customers as part of the work of industrial competence centres to replace foreign industry digital products and solutions.

Alexandr Osadchuk, Head of the Main Directorate for Innovative Development of the Russian Ministry of Defence, spoke about the areas of application of Russian IT developments.

Renat Lashin, Executive Director at the Russian Software Products Association “Russian Software”, spoke about the measures of state support for IT companies in 2024 and urged customers of Russian software to more actively share product requirements, i.e. to move away from searching for a direct analogue of foreign software to achieving functional sufficiency that fully meets the customer’s request.

Press Service, EXPOCENTRE AO