Russian Robotics: Jumpstarting to re-industrialisation with Skolkovo

Intelligent robotics is a hot topic for modern academics, capitalists and policy makers. Yet, it still fails to fulfill its potential to increase productivity, improve life for the elderly and safeguard humans from accidents. Intelligent, or advanced, robotics (IR) has every chance of becoming the next general-purpose technology like energy generation, the Internet or mass transit. Such GPTs are industries in themselves, but they also enable other industries to emerge. Being a renowned center for tech expertise, Skolkovo has defined a set of four priority areas in IR: improving cognition/navigation; natural human-machine interfaces; human augmentation systems; and medical robotics. Based on this set of priorities for Russias technological superiority, the Skolkovo Robotics Center (SRC) is capitalizing on the vast talent pool in Russia, especially in engineering, creating new opportunities for startup companies involved with robotics. Based on the lessons learned during Skolkovos development, this paper offers a general model of applicability and scalability of the Skolkovo experience elsewhere.