Medvedev is to bring MIT and Cisco in Skolkovo

During his visit to the United States last week, President Dmitry Medvedev signed an agreement on the participation of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Skolkovo project where the Center of Innovations is planned.

The agreement between MIT and Skolkovo Foundation provides the parties to determine before the end of this year the exact way of the institute collaboration with universities and research institutes in Russia. MIT also considers joining the fund as a partner. According to one of the negotiators, MIT will establish a research laboratories network all over Russia, and also open a university right in Skolkovo.

During his US trip Russian President also signed agreements with Boeing and Cisco.

300 developers, engineers and scientists will work on Boeing civil aircraft projects in Skolkovo. Engineering company “Progresstech” and IT-company “Luxoft” will participate on the Russian side. Moscow State University and Russian State Aviation Technology University are also likely to become Boeing partners. According to some reports, Boeing research centers, which are now stationed in Moscow, will also be moved to the Russian "Silicon Valley”.

Cisco intends to invest $ 1 billion in Skolkovo, but what exactly this money will be spent on, is not clear yet. An official press release says, that 100 million of them will go into venture capital, and another 175,000 - to award innovators.

Cisco plans to play a "leading role" in Skolkovo design. Bangalore is taken for a sample, where Cisco has got its Cisco Globalization Center East. With Cisco, technopolis will have "intelligent" buildings, "intelligent" power grid, "intelligent" property and transportation, connected to the
Internet, clarifies "Vedomosti".

Talking about Cisco, we recall the situation, when a few years ago the company was caught supplying routers and network switches for the "Golden Shield", better known as "China's great firewall". The fact itself would not be special, if one of the company presentations did not mentioned that the equipment would be used to deal with hostile elements. In other words, Cisco consciously earned money supplying equipment for the Internet censorship organization. Some RuNet specialists have already expressed concern that Cisco arrival at Skolkovo "Silicon Valley" could mean another "technological breakthrough" in the censorship field.