Youth International Economic Forum 2011

July 22, 2011                                        

I could not believe it. Not until I finally saw my Russian Visa pasted on my passport. I mean, the news that I was going to Russia so suddenly came, I barely had the time to prepare for everything. So that was it. I got lucky to have been chosen as one of the World’s 50 “future leaders” to attend this year’s St Petersburg Youth International Economic Forum. I know, that sounds like I am an heir of a railway fortune or an inventor of a very unique technology, or something… but anyhow, it happened despite my lowly profile. ㅋㅋ

 Right after my short adventures in Moscow, I took the Sapsan High Speed Train from Leningradsky Train Station bound for St. Petersburg, the host city of the forum. The train interior was impressive, even more impressive than that of Korea’ KTX. But… it was not as “high speed” as I initially expected. It took roughly 5 hours from Moscow to St. Petersburg, passing by the beautiful Russian countryside going north-west.

Arriving at the train station, it was easy to notice the big streamer promoting the economic forum that the city was hosting. Wow, I never expected that it was such a huge event in Russia. Little did I know that I would be enjoying the presence of some of Europe and America’s richest people in the 3 days ahead.

I took a Mercedes from the train station, which was prepared by the organizer, to the hotel where I would be staying. It was a Radisson-run posh hotel named Park Inn Pribaltskaya which looks really huge and grand from the outside. The service though was not as good. In fact, I am warning everyone not to stay at any Park Inn hotels in Europe. The reasons: no ready-to-use internet and the service is bad. I had the same experience in a Park Inn hotel in Moscow. Same brand, same service, everywhere. I was thinking maybe I expected too much from a Russian hotel. Or maybe not! I was hungry when I arrived. There was no refrigerator or water in my room, and no nearby convenience store since the hotel is really far from the city center. I was bored. I had to pay 90 Rubles (138 pesos) to use the internet for 15 minutes and had to make do with what a soviet-era TV could do. I needed to iron my suit. I had to go to another floor to do it myself. The air-conditioning unit was also antique, it was so noisy. The trade off was the view from my hotel window which was really amazing! I actually waited for the sun to completely set so I could take night shots of St Petersburg from my window, but it was already 1am and the sun was still bright and shiny! So I slept.

 The view from my hotel window at around 2am! 

Morning of the following day I had to skip the opening ceremony to take my exam online and my Graduate School admission interview through the phone. In the afternoon, sessions on different topics started. A lot of them interested me but I chose the one that I had very little knowledge of: entrepreneurship and the culture
of innovation. There I met some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, innovators, business professors and students from prestigious universities like Harvard, Princeton and LSE. Russia was undertaking an ambitious plan to repeat the success of Silicon Valley in Skolkovo. They wanted to invigorate the culture of innovation in their country that, for 70 years was under strict socialism and entrepreneurship was discouraged, even criminalized.

Anyway, Skolkovo is a site near Moscow that is intended to be an ultramodern complex envisioned to encourage scientific and technologically anchored companies, where entrepreneurs and innovators could meet and develop products. The discussion mainly focused on that. I was silent all throughout the session though. I mean, what could I really say? I was just observing them and trying to get every bit of learning and inspiration as possible. When we introduced ourselves to each other, I was the least accomplished. I am not an investor, not a venture capitalist, not a student of Princeton or Cambridge, nothing. I was a nobody in the room. The two other Asians in the session hall were confident people. One Indonesian who runs 700 restaurants in his country at the age of 28 and one from Hong Kong who is now working on his start up business at 22.

Moving on, we transferred to LenExpo the following day. Technocrats live from Silicon Valley in the US did a teleconferencing with us to share their successes, failures and ideas. This was when the words, “you should not be afraid to fail, to succeed” finally sunk in to me.

Participants from Russia, Hong Kong, China and the Philippines (Me!)

I have also learned that my country, the Philippines needs its own version of Silicon Valley and quit exporting highly skilled, exceptionally knowledgeable people to other countries! The World’s top economies are on top because they are producing something valuable for the world! They contribute to human civilization’s efforts to move forward! And the way to go is to intensify R&D and the manufacturing sector.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, along with executives from Procter and Gamble and other big multinationals were there too to share their experiences and inspire us, the young people to risk failures for possible successes.

For dinner, we went to a park, which I was not sure if it was part of the St Pete Governor’s residence or Capitol, to socialize with rich people. I felt so small there. People there were like talking about their ventures, profits, future business expansion plans and the whatnot. I was there to eat and to taste various drinks that I didn’t even know existed. We were all in business suit and women were mostly in long gowns I have only seen in Miss Universe Pageant. It was surreal.

At night, the participants’ presentations were projected at one of St. Petersburg bridges.

The forum for the young people ended when the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum formally kicked off with various heads of states, CEOs, billionaires, venture capitalists, industrialists and politicians attending. In 2009, Philippine President Gloria Arroyo attended this same event. This year, it was sort of a close encounter with President Medvedev of Russia and President Hu Jintao of China. I saw these guys in person! ㅋㅋㅋ Hey, these are two of the world’s most powerful people, the former being the head of state of a country with the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear arsenal and the former, leading the World’s fastest growing economy set to overtake the US in the next generation. They were of course stressing the importance of giving greater roles in the global arena to emerging economies like theirs as opposed to the already developed yet slow growing economies having much control over the financial and economic systems of the World.

My short yet meaningful experience with YIEF will surely last a lifetime. I learned a lot. I got inspired. And I guess, I have to courageously strive to continuously deserve the honor of being a part of YIEF 2011.

 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev

Chinese President Hu Jintao

 My hotel room

 One of St. Petersburg's many rivers. 

 Beautiful St. Petersburg! I guess this is my best shot yet!

 Me

 During the Sting Concert

Russians and Asians

Posted in: Cities,Opportunities,Personals,Politics,Russia,travels