There's no shortage of great scientific research coming out of Russian universities and laboratories, but how do those ideas get transformed into top-notch technology? Is Russia the best incubator for high-tech startup companies? Can Russian tech business be competitive on the global market? Will the new Skolkovo project improve Russia's position?

Technology Update takes these questions to the students of 2000 Nobel Prize for Physics winner Zhores Alferov, whose graduates from the Ioffe Institute (St. Petersburg) Optoelectronics Department are the brains behind up-and-coming Russian LED producer Optogan.

We were there when Optogan opened doors on the biggest LED factory in Eastern Europe and the CIS at the end of November, but we also traced their roots to where the team of scientists made their first world-class prototypes and convinced big-bucks backers like Mikhail Prokhorov's Onexim Group that their technology was worth the investment.

From the drawing board, to the incubator, to the world's most competitive markets -- growing up in the high-tech game, on Technology Update.

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