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Untitled Document Looking for scientific partnerships between American and Russian companies
All Things Considered National Public Radio November 6, 2003
MICHELE NORRIS, host:
The arrest of Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky may be scaring off investors in Russia's energy sector, but the Bush administration wants to see US companies start partnerships in another sector, science. The goal is to promote business ties that will give job opportunities to nuclear scientists in the former Soviet Union. That way, they won't do business with rogue states. NPR's Michele Kelemen visited an unusual trade show in Philadelphia.
MICHELE KELEMEN reporting:
Pennsylvania congressman and avid Russia watcher Curt Weldon described the Partnerships for Prosperity and Security Trade Show as a dream three years in the making.
Congressman CURT WELDON (Republican, Pennsylvania): We have the best examples of Russian technology. Whether it's in homeland security or medical technology or nanotechnology, when Russian and American scientists work together, all of us benefit.
KELEMEN: Russia's Minister of Atomic Energy, Alexander Rumyantsev, and US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham were on hand to announce the first US-Russian business venture in one of Russia's closed nuclear cities, towns once devoted entirely to weapons research. Abraham said the California-based medical devices company Numatech will be working with specter conversion(ph) in Snezhinsk, a city once vital to the Soviet Union's weapons program.
Secretary SPENCER ABRAHAM (Energy Department): We have here one of the initial venture products, a wheelchair equipped with active seat and back cushions. These breakthrough cushion devices are designed to alleviate sustained pressure on any one part of the body.
KELEMEN: The crowd quickly thinned out as Abraham and Rumyantsev left, but that didn't dampen the enthusiasm of Mikhail Verevkin(ph), who came from another of Russia's still-closed nuclear cities. This is his first time in the US, and he proudly showed off his jacket pocket full of business cards, hoping these contacts will pay off for his software company in Zheleznogorsk.
Mr. MIKHAIL VEREVKIN: It's really good opportunity for us (Russian spoken)...
KELEMEN: Mixing English and Russian, he said this is a chance to show that scientists in his town don't have to work just on weapons of mass destruction, but can work in business. Other scientists came from well-respected Moscow research centers. Badim Ramadonov(ph) of the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute has been working on a fissile material detection system that's software-based.
Mr. BADIM RAMADONOV: (Russian spoken)
KELEMEN: 'We need partners,' he says, 'who can tell us that this technology is needed and can invest in it.' Ramadonov has been supported mainly by grants from the International Science & Technology Center, which is now helping him find business partners. The projects here in Philadelphia certainly could use better marketing. At one booth, a badly translated video tried to explain how Russian technology could be used to detect explosives in airports, warning that terrorists only need a small amount to blow up a plane.
(Soundbite of videotape)
Unidentified Woman: This weight is equal to the size of an orange. So terrorists would have bring onboard with him no so much weight.
KELEMEN: Some say there is a disconnect between this glossy, if a bit amateurish, Philadelphia trade show and the reality of what the US is doing about keeping nuclear scientists in the former Soviet Union peacefully employed. Ken Luongo is with the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council.
Mr. KEN Luongo (Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council): There are programs, certainly one program which is very much related to this event which the US has decided not to extend the agreement on because of concerns over liability.
KELEMEN: That is the Nuclear Cities Initiative, a program designed to shut down weapons institutes in Russia's secret cities and create other jobs for scientists. Because the agreement wasn't extended, no new projects can be funded under the program, and Luongo questions whether private investment can really take its place.
Mr. LUONGO: I mean, if you really want to make the kind of projects which are in this hall a reality, it's going to take a lot more than handshakes and back slaps.
KELEMEN: As he strolled around the sparsely populated exhibition hall, Luongo raised doubt that foreign investors really want much of the Russian technology on display.
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