Gusakov: science is expensive, but it always pays off

Speaking with journalists at the Intellectual Belarus exhibition of sci-tech achievements, Vladimir Gusakov, the Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, drew attention to the high payback of the developments of our scientists

He noted, “Science is expensive, but it has never been unprofitable. Science always pays off and pays off highly. There are already orders for all our developments, and they are paid.”

The Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences cited particular examples, “Today I demonstrated a small microelectronic sensor, the order (the contract was signed yesterday) is worth $1m. Before the new year we sold a multipurpose laser – also worth $1m. We have programmes that have a payback of more than $100 per Br1 of costs, but there are no developments that have below five to seven per Rouble of costs.”

Vladimir Gusakov assured that the exhibition demonstrated the latest developments, “There are more than a thousand of them across different areas. The exhibits are presented in cluster variants. We started with the developments of students and young scientists, and then moved on to clusters of artificial intelligence, microelectronics, etc. All this is new. There are no developments which are over a year old. Everything on display is the most updated.”

The head of the National Academy of Sciences noted some of the exhibits, “We presented to the Head of State a number of world-class developments, and there are even samples with which we are ahead of the world. We have demonstrated this in the area of AI, in microelectronics. We have mastered chips and whole microcircuits which are 100 percent our development, without any foreign components. Military science has also shown its developments. We demonstrated our electric car in different versions: both a cargo frame-based vehicle and a racing one, and we are currently finalising the passenger version. We showed the Head of State our Belarusian helicopters, we call them gyroplanes. We also demonstrated drones for military and agricultural purposes. The expo displays biotechnological products and the latest home heating systems. It is possible to spend a whole day at this exhibition.”