Run, American, run

On June 28, 2015, a 52-year-old American Kendrick White, a venture capitalist with a Russian residence permit, a Russian wife, a pianist in the last pianist-the twenty-age of marriage, two children, Sebastian is eleven, Ekaterina eight, an apartment in Nizhny Novgorod and a house in the village of Somovka, woke up in the All-Russian-about the famous-about the famous-about He was shown the plot in the program of Dmitry Kiselev "Vesti weeks" on the channel "Russia 1"

Kendrick White during an interview with Skype with the author, on July 7, 2015, the plot in the Vesti Week program was designed to serve as an illustration of Putin’s words, which he said four days earlier: “Foreign funds rummage through schools under the guise of supporting talented youth and plant on grants.” The correspondent Olga Skabeeva could not show a school with foreigners who are rumbling along the floors - the children had long been on vacation, but in the tannies there was an interview shot at the University of Nizhny Novgorod named after Lobachevsky, where White was a vice -rector for innovative activities, at the end of May - White remembers that it was May 27 or 28.

“There are some people from the media” “This was my last working day, and I was even dressed not in a businesslike way. I always, you know, I wear a suit with a tie to work, but here I was just in a shirt. My assistant Anna called me and said: “Kendrick, there are some people from the media!” I was confused because the rector did not warn me in any way, and I did not know anything about it. And they already shot - they just came and began to shoot. I came there and asked: “Guys, who are you? What are you doing here? " The correspondent began to ask me: "Are you Kendrick White, vice -rector?" I replied that yes, after which she said: “We need to record an interview with you. We have permission, we would like to discuss with you the grand success of your program of business plans contests. ” Well, I thought that maybe this interview was really agreed. We sat down with her, she asked to talk about our activities, and we talked in the same way as we are talking to you now. Unless we said in Russian. She listened carefully to me, I began to talk about one of our problems here: the authors of each new technological project coming to us argue that the analogue of their technology is nowhere in the world, that their technology is completely unique. And very often it turns out, for example, that such studies have already been conducted in Germany, say, three years ago. Or the Japanese did the same five years ago. And everything, late, is no longer interested in anyone, you cannot commercialize this idea. I call this effect a “black hole”: many people simply do not know what is happening in the world of technology. They simply do not pay attention to what is happening in the English -speaking world. And for Russian science, this is a serious problem. Maryland University (

Partner of the University of Nizhny Novgorod named after Lobachevsky. - NT ) annually allocates $ 3 million from its budget for market research conducted by Frost and Sullivan. And thanks to this, their students and professors have a clear idea of ​​what is happening in their technological industry around the world. Whether it is the research of the brain, the search for cure for cancer, nanotechnology or something else-there are always huge amounts of important information and there are companies that collect and sell this information. And Russian universities do not have an article for the acquisition of these data. Therefore, they have to work in some isolation. Often, Russian scientists achieve incredible success in their work, but sometimes the opposite happens - their achievements are outdated, and scientists do not suspect this. The task of the Center for Commercialization of Technologies, which I created and I lead the university, is to help students and scientists understand whether they are really moving in the right direction. Maybe it is worth stopping the study and going the other way, where there will be really something unique, which the Chinese, Japanese or Americans do not have. We are a kind of consulting service within the university, and my task is to create an innovative ecosystem. This is what I tried to explain to the correspondent "Russia 1". But, I'm afraid she did not understand a single word, ”White said in an interview with Skype NT on July 7, he was in his office at the University in Lower New Year, and a map of Russia hung behind him.

“Kendrick, do not stay in America, come back” that he is a foreign agent hanging portraits of all kinds of jobs in the corridors of the Russian University (portraits of Kaspersky and Volozh did not notice, or the founders of the Kaspersky and Yandex laboratory simply did not recognize in the face) - White found out in Florida: he was in Florida: he was in Florida: On July, his mother’s birthday, and this is the tradition of the whole family to come to her for a holiday. When the plot itself was going on, he either had a fish, or he was in a water park with children, opened e -mail the next day: so he found out that he was no longer a vice -rector and that the page of his center was removed from the university website.

“I immediately contacted the first vice -rector (

Alexander Grudzinsky. ). He said: “Kendrick, do not worry, we need to discuss everything properly. The structure of our work will not change, please do not stay in America, come back. ”

However, on June 30, on the website of the Nizhny Novgorod University. Lobachevsky appeared a message:

“In connection with the restructuring of the system of management of innovative activities of the NSU ... by order of the rector of the NSU dated June 26, 2015 (

That is, the order was signed retroactively. ) Associate Professor of the NIT Wait Kendrick Davis is exempted from the performance of the duties of the vice -rector of the NSU for innovation. ” Associate Professor White Kendrick Davis was neither a dream nor spirit.

Evgeny Chuprunov, rector of NSU, was unavailable for comments - on vacation.

The first vice -rector Alexander Grudzinsky refused comments - busy.

The vice -rector for public relations Nikita Avralev, in response to the editorial office, sent a written answer: “Since 2013, the NSU entered the program“ 5–100 ”. A large -scale reorganization has begun at the university in order to increase its international competitiveness. A number of new institutions were created ... The task of internationalization of innovative activities was also set. To this end, the Center for Commercialization of Technologies was created, led by an American entrepreneur living for more than 20 years in Nizhny Novgorod, Kendric White. Kendrick White also entrusted the responsibilities of the vice -rector for innovative activities. ” Well, then another half a page of letters - “The Center played”, “The Center is not engaged in sending students abroad”, “The Center provides marketing support for innovative developments in global markets” - not a word about how and why White was dismissed after the plot was released in Russia 1.

From an interview with Kendric White July 7, 2015: “The first vice -rector said:“ Kendrick, come back! ” And I returned here with my family, the children have already missed their Russian grandmother. Today I sent them to the village, where friends were already waiting for them. Yesterday (July 6) I met with the first vice -rector and with the whole team, they explained everything to me, we came to a common opinion.

They explained to you why you were fired? No! I was not fired.

But the rector of Chuprunov told the media that you were no longer a vice -rector ... They could get excited and incorrectly present the whole situation. I think this may be due to the huge coverage of this (“Russia 1”) television channel. Let me limit yourself to such a diplomatic answer: ask the rector. Yesterday I asked them the same question, and they answered me: "Let's ask Evgeny Vladimirovich himself." Yesterday we spent five hours with our entire working team. We discussed everything, I agreed with everything. For my part, I can say that I am ready to continue my work ...

Excuse me, with what did you agree with everything? Have you been shifted from your post or not? I am no longer a vice -rector. This does not bother me at all, this is such a political question.

And who are you now? For two years in this position, I managed to create this infrastructure ...

What is now called your position at the university now? I don’t quite understand yet, I will need to talk to the rector when he returns from vacation. I don’t know this so far.

But you asked your colleagues, why were you removed from your post? The only one who is able to answer this question is the rector. ”

In the summer of 2013 - half a year after the White Center was created, the Rector of Chuprunov asked his American friend to make a presentation for the Minister of Education Livanov - the university applied for participation in the 5–100 ministerial program, designed to increase the competitiveness of leading Russian universities, the website of the ministry said. “I was part of the university team, along with the rector, when we represented (

Minister Livanov. ) Our vision of the modernization of the university, says White. “That summer I was offered to become a vice -rector.”

“The Case in our Systems” in Russia Kendyrk White was in 1994. The story, as he says, was as follows:

“About twelve-thundeen years I came to my father and asked him:“ Dad, why are we waging this Cold War? ” And he replied: “Son, the reason is not that the American and Russian people entered into conflict. The point is in our systems. In our countries there are different types of economic systems. And the fight is going to find out which of the systems is better. ” I thought about what I heard and decided to become an economist. At the University in Florida, I concentrated on the oil industry economy.

I wrote my diploma during the passage of a half -year exchange program in the London School of Economics in 1990. My final work was devoted to the fact that, in my opinion, it was supposed to lead to the decline of the Soviet Union - the inconsistency of oil policy and oil producing policy in Siberia. For example, they sent drilling plants to Khanty-Mansiysk and threw everything there, without bringing to the end. Officials in Moscow, trying to fulfill the plan, demanded to transfer installations to another place. People in the field said: “But we have not even reached the oil!”, And in response we received: “We don’t care, transfer prey to Tomsk.” One by one I studied such cases and came to the conclusion that from an economic point of view, a state plan was a disaster. During the writing of the diploma, I managed to release a long beard and, imagine, worked in the place where Karl Marx wrote “Capital”. My father told me to return home and find a job, I shaved, returned home, got a job in Chicago, worked for eight years in the mergers and acquisitions, in the Strategic Planning Department, received a master's degree at the Kellogg Management School. In the summer of 1991, I read the book of Grigory Yavlinsky, which he wrote in co-authorship with the professor of Harvard University Graham Allison, “The Opportun The Window” in which Yavlinsky stated that he intends to implement a 500-day plan in Nizhny Novgorod. I thought: “These guys are just crazy. The market economy cannot be built in 500 days. ” And in 1994 I was invited to Nizhny Novgorod. I took a vacation in ABN Amro in Chicago and went to work as an adviser.

Whose adviser? Boris Nemtsov and Grigory Yavlinsky. But I'm not sure that now the right time to pay special attention to this.

Why? Tomorrow, most likely, a vote will be held on the so-called patriotic stop list (the law “On undesirable organizations.”- NT .), And if it crawls out ... ”

Then White worked in the consulting giant Pricewaterhouse, was an adviser to the Russian Center for Privatization, worked under the venture programs of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, created its own venture fund, helped beginner Russian businesses, engaged in the modernization of Nizhfarm, which was then bought by the Germans for $ 125 million, and attracted to Russia Millions of dollars. “Kendrick is engaged in the benefit of young entrepreneurs,” businessman Yevgeny Slnyakov, who once worked in Nizhfarm, and now the general director of LLC Promis (producer of drug packaging) said in an interview with NT . “He helps them bring the companies to the world level, which ultimately increases the country's GDP and contributes to the development of Russia.”

In his free from Russia, White met at a party with his future wife, fell in love, married, gave birth to children who study at a regular Russian school in Nizhny Novgorod. He pays taxes in Russia. He is not going to leave. In any case, for now.

“We have not 1937, but 2015,” said, commenting on the plot at Russia 1, one of the Russian businessmen who worked with White.