University of California, Berkeley visiting scholar Vivek Wadhwa says that Russia’s efforts to build a Silicon Valley will be challenging due to the lack of a culture of entrepreneurship, risk-taking, and openness. However, Wadhwa notes that no other region in the world has been able to replicate Silicon Valley’s success. He encourages Russia to build a different type of innovation and research hub that is more focused on science and engineering. Still, Russia faces many challenges. Foreign investors are discouraged by rules of law that fail to match countries such as the United States and those in Western Europe. Russian bureaucracies are confusing, corruption is rampant, and powerful oligarchs dominate crucial industries. Until these problems are fixed, technological entrepreneurship cannot flourish, Wadhwa says. Russia also needs to teach entrepreneurship to experienced workers as well as university students. In addition, Russian president Medvedev should provide a vision for the challenges that Russian society faces and ask entrepreneurs to help solve them. Russia also should try to attract foreign entrepreneurs, especially those from Eastern Europe and South Asia, with incentives that will encourage them to start companies
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