‘Innovation Isn’t Just an Empty Word or a Fashion Fad’

Mikhail Komarov

Mikhail Komarov, lecturer at the Faculty of Business Informatics Department of Innovation and Business in Information Technologies, is one of the ‘100 young innovators’ at the ‘Open Innovations’ forum. Open Innovations is an open space for people who develop and implement innovative solutions all over the world. The event is focused on forecasting technology trends and defining the role of information technology in global processes.

— What project did you present at the forum?

— Our team presented two projects by the WiSeNet Lab, an inter-university laboratory for innovative projects. One of them is the system of ‘Smart Chalk’, which allows you to create an interactive screen without special coatings, panels or expensive systems of recognition, and to have simultaneous, multiple users with it. The second project, ‘Smart Energy’, is a prototype of a system which allows energy consumption calculation by device, paying for energy use in public areas ( using a ‘public socket’ or charging station), and provides up-dates  about black spots in  the electricity supply or in the case of an electricity network overload. This is an interesting project and I hope we’ll bring it to implementation.

— What is the group of ‘100 young innovators’ which was created during the forum?

— This is a group of people who have already suggested innovative projects and are at different stages of their implementation. The idea is to give  people with ideas the opportunity to get together, to promote creativity and develop business connections. The atmosphere of openness is a specific feature of the forum.

As part of the forum, a special Q&A session was organized with Sir Richard Branson, a British billionaire and head of Virgin Group. The list of speakers also included David Yang, head of ABBYY, Phil Spencer, Vice President of Microsoft Studio, and other respected people.

— In recent years, the term ‘innovative’ has become one of the most commonly used, and is applied to almost all spheres of life. Don’t you think that this term has lost its value?

Today the word ‘innovative’ is often used just as a buzzword, but it does have a genuine meaning. Innovations are an ideal combination of business and science. Without them, we have business on the one hand, ‘skimming the cream off’ but doing nothing serious or interesting, and, on the other, pure science the results of which cannot be applied. I often say that everything we are dreaming about today is, in the context of our fantasies, in the far distant future, but in the context of rapid technological development it is literally tomorrow. Innovations are not just empty words or fashion fads, they are specific solutions, products, services and technologies which, when they are implemented, make our life  better, easier and more comfortable, giving us more time for creativity.