Ed Bentley

Amid President Dmitry Medvedev's calls for modernisation, one of the IT sector's top employers has said Russian high-tech companies are being let down by the education system.

Natalya Kaspersky, co-founder and chairwoman of Kaspersky Lab, a leading maker of anti-virus computer systems, believes that education is the key.

"I believe that our growth prospects lie in the mind, in high technology or in our brain if you wish," Kaspersky said in an interview at her offices in Strogino in northwest Moscow.

The area surrounding her office in the Zenit-Inter business centre is symbolic of many of Russia's struggling industries, with several run-down car workshops and construction sites nearby. In contrast, the anti-virus firm has barely felt the crisis thanks to what it calls its robust subscription model.

"Because [the company] works mostly in the consumer sector, it was not really affected at all," said Kaspersky. "We can maybe speak about a slight growth decrease but not a [loss]."

While the US continues to dominate the IT sector, Russia, India and China are considered the three pretenders to the throne, often seen as dividing the sector up between them. While China and India have the cheap manpower, Russia often picks up highly skilled jobs - but for companies there remains a dearth of talent.

"Even during the crisis when some professionals become [more readily] available on the market, such as lawyers, we still lacked a decent number of high-quality engineers and programmers," said Kaspersky. "The moment we see any, we take them."

Despite a stream of engineers graduating from Russia's universities, many of these are simply unqualified to work in modern technical firms or the IT sector, as universities are not teaching them specific skills.

"The companies take those engineers and then teach them everything because they don't know anything they need to," said Kaspersky.

Things are beginning to change, thanks to pressure from the IT business establishment. Universities have begun tailoring their courses to business needs, while education authorities are creating two new official professions, with another three expected to be ratified next year.

It is not just in the IT sector that there's a lack of top professionals, and effective project managers have become one of the most desirable commodities in the labour market.

Almost all major companies employ project managers as well as having their own IT departments and this has kept wages high even during the crisis, as well as forcing companies to train their own employees.

"We don't have any expertise in the country in project management," said Kaspersky. "It all needs to be taught when a person comes to the job and sometimes they [turn out] better or sometimes worse."

While Kaspersky Lab appears to be a good model to follow, the economy was very different in when Natalya Kaspersky and then-husband Eugene Kaspersky founded the company in 1997.

Cheap labour was readily available, although the lack of established and affordable professionals remained a problem.

"I took people who had shining eyes and an eagerness to do something," she said. "They didn't have any experience, but I didn't have any experience either. We were brave and were not afraid to make mistakes. I think that helped us."

The Kasperskys, who divorced in 1998 but have continued to work together to this day, received no government support to develop the company. But the authorities are now taking more steps to encourage high-tech start-ups.

Rosnano, the state corporation dealing with nanotechnology, and the Russian Venture Company, both have billion-dollar budgets to fund the development of small and medium-size companies, though very little of this has yet found its way into the economy.

"[The Russian Venture Company] either didn't invest at all or invested very little," said Kaspersky. "They are still trying to figure out the model."

In recent months the drive for modernisation and hi-tech developments has stepped up, with President Dmitry Medvedev proposing a Russian rival to Silicon Valley last week. Currently, the domestic IT sector is equivalent to 1 per cent of GDP and worth $3 billion, compared with $300 billion in the United States, leaving plenty of room for expansion.

"I think the opportunities for growth are in high technology and developing software," Kaspersky said.

As head of a new company, Infowatch, since 2007, she is now steering another company through a crisis and has warned aspiring entrepreneurs that simply copying Kasperky Lab's model in recovering from the 1998 crisis would not work.

Kaspersky offered one piece of advice to those trying to make a splash in the IT sector, however: Work 12 hour days, with no weekends off and no holidays in the first three years.

"Be persistent," Kaspersky said.

"If you want to be a big part of the company, then you should devote all your time and all your energy to this start-up ... the first three years are the most difficult."