MINSK, 6 March (BelTA) – Horizont Innovation Center opened in Minsk on 6 March, BelTA has learned.
The center is a unique project for Belarus. It will unite ideas, business and technologies in industrial and consumer electronics, avionics, automotive transport, and so on.
According to General Director of Horizont Holding Company Yuri Predko, the center will promote the development of the electronics industry and launch new ambitious projects together with Russian, European and Japanese colleagues. For example, Horizont will announce a joint venture with one of the famous Japanese companies soon.
Plans are in place to open the second part of the innovation center soon. It will focus on knowledge-based and experimental manufacturing.
The team of the center will include about a thousand professionals: developers, industrial designers, programmers, engineers, designers, testers and managers engaged in strategy development and management of innovative projects.
The innovation center meets the spirit of our time, Chairman of the State Science and Technology Committee Alexander Shumilin told the media. In his words, the innovation cycle has been continuously getting shorter. Earlier it was three or four years. Today a company should renew its lineup at least once a year to hold its foothold on the market.
Belarus’ innovation development program for the ongoing five-year period envisages the development of infrastructure facilities to accelerate the manufacturing and marketing methods. “It is important that Horizont has now a center that will implement such projects,” Alexander Shumilin said.
Horizont Holding Company comprises 21 enterprises that are divided into six business units (research, the production of industrial electronics and home appliances, lighting, real property, and social sector). The company’s export volumes have increased 3.5 times over the past three years.