Russia is the last untapped source of potentially disruptive technologies. Its history as a closed, alternate society, in the days of the Cold War, fed an insular culture. Soviet science proved its capabilities dramatically with the launch of sputnik. Sakharov developed an original design for a Hydrogen bomb. The alternate universe no longer exists. The world is connecting, thanks to a web whose commercial origins can be traced to Silicon Valley. The "Valley" is on the lookout for the next "big thing." Where might it come from? Consider Russia. Many clever Russians left in the 90's, and can...

The bombing of the Boston Marathon created a new link between Boston and Russia, original home of the bomber brothers. I had moved to Boston months prior to the April 15 bombing to open an East Coast office for Fuzzy Chip, a company commercializing the multi-value chip designs of Dr. Viktor Olexenko of Vladivostok, in Russia's Far East. I believed Boston to be an appropriate place in which to expand my efforts to commercialize "transformational technologies" from Russia, given the presence of world renown research facilities there. My business model suggests that early stage Russian...

The book describes my experiences in the legal processes of Silicon Valley and Finland, initiated by good faith efforts to commercialize potentially "transformational technologies" from Russian inventors. In each of the two cases described the Russian inventor's non-compliance with obligations stipulated in signed agreements forced the initiation of arbitrations where I found myself opposed by top notch legal talent, sometimes forced into representing myself. In the Silicon Valley case the scientist was Dr. Vladimir Poponin, his technology: the direct optical detection of DNA (promising the...

This Bannana book speaks about Finland, my father's country and how I was treated there as an "outsider," not speaking the language of a court system that does not put its best foot forward in these pages. I was forced to defend myself after forming a company, Buddha Biopharma Oy there, with two Russian partners. The company offered a promising treatment for Alzheimer's disease and was hopeful of obtaining funding support from Tekes, the Finnish government agency responsible for supporting start-ups with promising technologies. When no funding was provided, I paid myself a salary from funds...