By

Tom Riess

Rakan Badawi

Nick Ionita

 

Russia’s official name is the Russian Federation (Rossiyskaya Federatsiya). In terms of land it’s the largest country in the world spanning 17,075,200 sq km, with a population of 143,782,3381.3. With a capital city of Moscow, Russia is a Federation of 89 states whose current President is Vladimir Putin. A Federation is a type of government whose sovereign power is formally split through a constitution between a central authority and a number of constituent regions (in Russia’s case States). Each of these regions is responsible for some management of its internal affairs. Russia has a had a long history of political change, and has only recently been federated when the U.S.S.R. otherwise known as the Soviet Union split into 15 independent Republics in 1991. Russia has struggled since then to move away from a past influenced by communism into a more democratic political system and economic market. Its development has been slowed due to financial recessions that plagued the country in the mid to late 1990’s.
Russia sits in a unique situation for a developing country as its political and economic turmoil have affected its progress in today’s information economy. Due to many advances the Soviet Union made during the Cold War, it has a wealth and strong history of technically educated workers from its defense industry. Approximately 98% of the Russian population over the age of 15 is literate. The Russian constitution guarantees the right to free preschool, basic general and secondary education until the age of fifteen. By 1995 Russia had 500 secondary schools including 42 universities1.1. Russia’s set back comes from the lack of standardization in education curriculum and funding between its many regions after the fallout of the Soviet Union. Many regions developed unevenly in terms of education students received, and the level of ICTs used within schools. Russia’s economic recession after the Soviet Union’s fallout also hurt the country’s technological advancement’s greatly. Due to the country’s vast geographic size, undeveloped telecommunications infrastructure also makes it difficult for technology to be evenly distributed to all its citizens. Despite all its set backs, Russia has a plan in place to help the country advance within the next 10 years and regain its former prominence as a global technology leader.
Russia has a proven track record as a past ‘Super-Power’ that resulted in fierce competition with the United States for innovation. The focus of this paper is to evaluate the Former Soviet Union for its ability to compete in the global IT marketplace. The areas of network readiness (access, learning, society, economy, and policy), that include recommendations within each section and a comparison to an Offshore Outsourcing framework will be discussed.