Deputy Prime Minister, Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev, Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic Alexei Chekunkov, and Governor of the Arkhangelsk Region Alexander Tsybulsky visited Digital Arctic IT Park.

The technology park, created for the development and widespread use of digital technologies, has been operating at NArFU (Northern Arctic Federal University) for almost half a year and has already launched four projects in digital production, including Digital Solutions for a Typical Arctic Port Model, Smart Forest, Telemedicine, and the Digital Transformation of Urban Space. These projects are currently at various stages of implementation, but eventually they should raise the regional economy to a new level.

One of the key areas for the IT park will be digitalizing forest management processes, supplying raw wood materials, tracking the full life cycle of the production of timber products, monitoring technological processes, and developing a decision-making system in production.

During his visit to the IT park, the Deputy Prime Minister got first-hand knowledge of the NArFU development program. He learned about the university’s scientific activities and the Arctic Floating University project, saw an interactive map of Northern Sea Route ports, and was shown the technical equipment at Digital Arctic IT Park.

In addition, Yury Trutnev learned about the research developments of the Russian Arctic Research and Education Center. In particular, various composite building materials, biotechnological materials and synthetic diamond materials were demonstrated to him, as well as the research results of the laboratory for diagnosing carbon materials and the spin-optical properties of wide-gap semiconductors, the laboratory for the chemistry of natural compounds and bio-analytics, the Integrated Reforestation project, and other developments.

Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic Alexei Chekunkov and Arkhangelsk Region Governor Alexander Tsybulsky accompanied the Deputy Prime Minister on his tour of the IT park. The head of Pomorye noted that the NArFU development program was approved in 2021, when it received 1 billion rubles from the federal budget. According to Tsybulsky, the university has allocated 766 million rubles for research activities over the past two years.

“I always like it when people are keen on science, and make progress in creative activities. It is very important. But it should be noted that not only fundamental research in science is important, but so is its practical application. This is one of the most important goals of the Russian Government and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. We are ready to provide support. The Voskhod venture fund began operating to support innovation industries in the Far East. Voskhod is one of the development support tools. We all need to work together to decide how the results of scientific efforts can be put to good use and benefit our country, how they can find practical application so that this research goes to increase the advantages of our country,” Yury Trutnev said when sharing his impressions of the IT park.