Roman Povolotsky: “After 3 years, we will stop buying televisions and smartphones, because they will no longer be needed”

Russia is rapidly moving towards globaldigitalization and automation, but we still vaguely imagine the scale of future changes. In order not to be left behind tomorrow, businesses and citizens need to adapt today to change and learn the necessary skills.

Roman Povolotsky, founder and leader“Cyber ​​Russia” federal program for the development of the digital economy’s personnel, told BitCryptoNews about the further development of information technologies, the importance of training in this direction, and, of course, about blockchain and cryptocurrency perspectives.

- The Cyber ​​Russia project is a strategic initiative, and the curriculum is designed for students from school age. Is there really such a shortage of specialists in this field in the country?

- Of course, there is a deficit. It is connected, first of all, with the rapid growth of the technologies themselves. Virtual and augmented reality in this regard occupy a large niche. This is a market that will grow in the coming at least twenty years, or even more.

The specialists who are currently on the market are veryin demand, because to work in the direction of AR / VR you need to have a huge amount of skills, which we teach from scratch. People come to us without preparation, but in 2-3 years they begin to write their first software. Our task is that they also learn how to earn money using our program. We already have precedents.

The situation has developed in the country, we provide the codehuman capital, a huge number of other states and the most valuable talents from us, unfortunately, flow away. Therefore, our primary goal is to create such conditions under which you can engage in software development and sell it around the world without leaving Russia.

But of course, when we talk about someserious projects, it is important to understand that Russia is not a market at all. That is, the Russian-speaking population is 1% of the Internet population of the planet, and this is all the beauty.

- What existing information technologies do you consider the most significant in the long run and why?

- Firstly, systems that collect, store andprocess data - this is the most powerful trend. That is, we are moving from the information society to a data management society, from IT to Data technologies.

Secondly, this data needs to be managed. These include artificial intelligence systems, computer vision, unmanned vehicles, virtual and augmented reality, robotics and blockchain, of course.

- In your opinion, when will AR / VR technologies be integrated into workplaces in Russia and support services will go into virtual mode?

- I think that we are now in about 3years to this point, and in 2022-2023 it will become a mass phenomenon. Then we can go into some Euroset or Svyaznoy and buy virtual reality glasses for $ 300, record software there and not buy more televisions, monitors and smartphones, because they are not really needed.

Augmented reality has a very seriousadvantage: she frees her hands. In those professions where hands are busy, augmented reality is the only effective solution. For example, these are doctors, designers, mechanics and all those who work in similar conditions. Therefore, when such affordable equipment appears, then he will immediately find application.

- How do you feel about the idea of ​​virtual offices?

- I believe in her. Instead of buying yourself a bunch of monitors and not be able to drag them to the cottage, to another office or city, it will be easier to buy glasses and make virtual monitors to interact with everything you need.

- That is, the next step is virtual monitors?

- They already are! Just glasses do not perform a full-fledged function now because of the small battery charge and low power. You can’t work with them all day without recharging. Well, for a number of other reasons, but these shortcomings will quickly be fixed. The bill goes for months.

- What about the stores in AR / VR?

- Compared to staff training, production, medicine, marketing, all sorts of installations, architecture and industry 4.0, these are noises. I think that they will account for less than 3% of the market.

- It turns out that stores will not massively use AR / VR?

- No, why? They will, because any tag on clothes or goods on the counter is a surface that can be used as a marker for augmented reality.

Of course, it will be, and this is a huge business. But compared to production facilities, training and education, I think it will be used less.

You asked now, and I thought. If we are talking about retail, then unmanned drones will soon be engaged in delivery of orders, so this niche will also leave. Let's see, in any case, all this will develop.

- Which of the latest projects in the field of virtual / augmented reality impressed you the most?

- Personally, I was impressed by what we recently didtogether with the Rekadro company. This is a simulator of human behavior in an emergency when you need to urgently provide medical care. I was surprised to find that I have no idea what to do if I see that a person is lying on the floor unconscious and his head is in blood. It was an interesting experience for me, and now I know how to behave.

- That is, he immediately shows options for what to do?

- This is the difference, which does not immediately show, butyou need to perform certain actions. This is the fundamental difference between watching a video and being in a virtual environment. This is the presence of an interactive script that can demonstrate what options can be in the simulator. After the experience, I became more prepared for such things. I really liked it, and I really believed in the prospects for training staff in this way.

When it became clear how easy it is to reproducea critical situation that can hardly be recreated in real conditions, it doesn’t matter if the conveyor breaks down, an explosion at a nuclear power plant or something else, and you can live it, the understanding of how to behave in this situation increases sharply. It really impressed me.

- What, in your opinion, awaits blockchain and cryptocurrencies in the future?

- Blockchain awaits prosperity. This is a technology that allows you to create a secure data storage structure. And cryptocurrencies are a difficult question, because it is not a state-regulated currency that will raise certain questions from the authorities of different countries. Therefore, I think that cryptocurrencies do not expect anything good, unlike their underlying technology.

We will see the flourishing of this system. Because now we have observed only its exclusively mercantile applications. The market was overheated by those investors who believed in the ease of profit. And now this niche has rolled back because no one wants to be deceived.

In addition, 95% of projects on the blockchain werestupid, and those 5% that are will be completed and form the market. That is, according to the Gardner curve, they will reach the “stability plateau”, and we will see a system that allows you to store this data using the blockchain.

They’ll just be fewer, they will havespecific function and, in principle, this is the future. I think that counter-corporate measures take place on the blockchain, and we will see a procession of segmented directories, data structures that are deliberately decentralized.

- Why in the training programs, it was decided to focus on 3D modeling, AR / VR and blockchain services, and not on the more "big" now big data and artificial intelligence?

- In general, we are developers of computer games and wethis topic is closer! We believe that computer games are a type of interactive media that will constantly evolve. Obviously, most children now play computer games.

When we address them and ask questions: “How many of you play computer games?” How many wants to make computer games? ”, Then we see a forest of hands. And this is an understandable proposal for them, because we, through a creative idea, through inspiration, a visible or expected image of the future in the form of a game for this idea, motivate a child or student to make it.

When he begins to create, it turns out thatto implement, you need to know a huge amount of knowledge: to know mathematics and physics, own several programming languages ​​and various 3D modeling tools. And, of course, when he studies all this, making his game, then he has a completely different attitude.

Blockchain is easy. We have a team that is very seriously involved in development, and now we are more in the production of this team. That is, we practically do not conduct training now, because this topic is in the gray zone in our country, and we decided to focus on what is more understandable.

In addition, virtual and augmented reality is an insanely interesting market. It is growing very fast, and for us it is more understandable and predictable in terms of money than everyone else.

We are also engaged in robotics,artificial intelligence, neural networks with computer vision - all this is also in our field of vision, but we have made virtual and augmented reality the basis. The plans also include the development of the sphere of the Internet of things.

The second important point is that we are indigital environment. In our hand is no longer just a mobile phone for calls. It has applications related to the server, with cloud computing. Part of them is processed by artificial intelligence, and there are applications with augmented reality there, that is, it is a whole complex.

Virtual and Augmented Reality is Newtype of input / output of information in general. When virtual reality glasses appear at the level of smartphone availability, we will see explosive growth in content sales. And we systematically want to occupy this particular niche.

- What can those who have successfully completed training now count on?

- We have several options for completionlearning. The first option is that we help with employment. We ourselves have a large number of vacancies. The market is growing rapidly, we are sorely lacking developers and educators. We employ those who express their desire and match personal qualities.

If a person meets the requirements andreally wants to work, then we help him. He very quickly finds work, and well paid. A large number of people have already passed through us, and there have never been such situations when a person asked us for help with employment, and there were some problems with this.

The second option is to create your own company orteams. They come to us to establish their own startup, and try to figure out how to do it right. They have some kind of idea or even a project, a team, and we help them make a sweet of it.

Even if a person does not work for us, thenat the end of his studies, he has a rich portfolio, since in the process of training he solves many interesting problems. And it all starts with computer games, because it is one of the most complex types of software that strongly motivates and inspires both children and adults.

When they learned how to make games, everything elsemake it easy and understandable. A person in the learning process, in 2-3 years, depending on the program, receives such a baggage of work and experience that he can easily find a good job with them.

There is a clear for softwarelogistics. Through the Internet everything is much simpler and at the same time there is a high capital intensity of the processes. That is, a team of seven can make a cool product that will be popular with millions of users around the world. It will be enough to translate this software into several languages ​​and that’s it.

- What are the age limits for students?

- It is worth noting that our program is designedto several target groups with which we work. The first group is children, for them there is a program from 1 to 8 grade. We have developed a large enough and extensive program to train them to the right level.

The second group is adult developers who have a big request to improve their competencies:

• programmers who want to know Unity better;
• startups who want to pump in virtual reality;
• project teams of corporate clients who want to enter the virtual and augmented reality market.

They come to us in coworking, where wea specific team, with a specific person, we develop an individual training program. It becomes a work plan, where at the exit we help to get the expected result. And it doesn’t matter if it’s employment, creating your own project or launching a product on the market.

And the third group is pensioners. Starting this year, we began to work actively with them in order to prepare and make them educators. In March, we launched the first retirement education groups. In our country, the retirement age has increased, and somewhere people need to work.

- Do you plan to expand the list of training programs in new directions in the near future?

- Now, first of all, this is computervision, machine learning, and artificial intelligence systems. About robotics later, we now have it more like mechatronics. We believe in virtual and augmented reality more than anything, which is why we are engaged in it. This is an understandable product for us, and it has clear prospects.

Our goals: to create the best education in the world, to stop the export of human capital and to export education and software.

interviewed: Ivan Malichenko, photo: “Cyber ​​Russia”