OREANDA-NEWS. October 22, 2012. Moscow International Performing Arts Centre hosted the IT Leader Forum "Global Industry Leaders' Vision of the Future". The forum brought together business people, journalists, IT experts and analysts. IT executives from the largest organizations shared their opinions about the technologies which would change the business development model in the future.

The forum started with a presentation by Thomas Frey, the founder and senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute (US). Thomas talked about how today's fantasies could become reality in the next decades and the new environment that businesses will have to adapt to. "Technology changes all spheres of our lives. Humanity will change more in the next 20 years than in all of human history. Driverless cars and robots will soon become common. 3D-printers will be used to print perfectly fitting clothes and healthy organic food. Teacherless education will become normal: this is especially important for Russia with its huge territories," said Thomas Frey.

Then Alexander Gordon, a famous Russian TV host and stage director, held two talk show discussion sessions.

During the first session "Phobias and Manias of IT Consumers" panelists discussed whether social networks should be adopted within companies and shared their views about the future of cloud computing and outsourcing. The participants of the session were: Sergey Karpov, Director General, EMC Russia and CIS; Vyacheslav Shabaikin, Deputy Chairman of the Board, International Financial Club Bank; Anton Levikov, IT Director, Novard Group; Anton Gavrin, Director of Information and Television Technology Department, CTC Media; Alexander Krasnov, Deputy Director General for IT, Razgulay Group; Artem Pletnev, IT Operations Director, ROLF; Dmitry Mendrelyuk, Director General of National Business Network, Pavel Toimentsev, CIO, Gazprom Gazenergoset; Dmitry Lasht, Commercial Director - Enterprise Solutions Group, HP Russia, and Mikhail Nosov, Director of Information and Communication Technology Center, JSC KAMAZ.

"With dynamic market development, it is important to understand which technologies are suitable for a particular company because there is no recipe that works for all and every solution has its pros and cons. For instance, corporate social networks build even stronger teams and improve time-effectiveness by simplifying communications among employees. However, if they offer too much entertainment, they can interfere with work. The way out is via portals which contain only important information which is useful for business-related tasks," comments Pavel Toimentsev, CIO, Gazprom Gazenergoset.

During the second session "Workplace: looking into the future" panelists discussed mobile workplaces, green technologies in Russia and robotics. Second session panelists were: Dmitry Inshakov, Ph.D. in Engineering, IT Director and Deputy CIO for Central and Eastern Europe, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Russia; Andrey Platonov, Project Manager for Unified Industry Information Security System Creation, ROSATOM State Nuclear Energy Corporation; Vadim Urias, Vice President for IT, JSC NLMK; Dmitry Ivannikov, Public Sector Lead, Microsoft; Vladimir Makarov, Advisor for Head of Moscow IT Department, Head of IT Adoption Program for Healthcare Industry; Yury Zelenkov, Information Technology Director, NPO Saturn; Dmitry Ustyuzhanin, Head of Information Security Department, JSC VimpelCom; Vladimir Chichetkin, Director of Information Technology Department, JSC Promsvyazbank; Dmitry Ivannikov, Public Sector Lead, Microsoft; Sergey Gupaisov, IT Director, Kraft Foods Russia, Danila Medvedev, Futurist, Science Popularizer, prolific author and interviewee about the future; Andrey Suvorov, Head of Enterprise Computer Systems Department, IBM Russia and CIS; and Elena Smirnova, Expert, World Wildlife Fund Russia.

"Workplace standards are changing dramatically: mobility and freedom are becoming more and more valued. The idea of "going to work" will probably disappear in the future. Human intellectual capacity is growing rapidly and in the future it will probably be common for employees to work at several companies around the world, for example as an engineer in one company and as a designer in another. The approach to security will also change, with the focus of security set to shift from specific IT systems to information itself. Thanks to technologies, security systems will operate non-intrusively and the selection of the right security policies will become intuitive," said Dmitry Ustyuzhanin, Head of Information Security Department, JSC VimpelCom.

The organizers of the IT Leader Forum are the Russian Managers Association, CROC, Itogi, CIO and Intelligent Enterprise magazines.