The IT industry has grown by nearly 46 times over the last 17 years from $110 million in 2003 to about $5 billion. The average growth rate of the industry is 20-25% annually. Ukrainian developers ranked 4th in Europe and 5th in the world in terms of quality. How Ukraine managed to get such great results – was discussed during the "Ukraine-World Cooperation: Big Tech, Big Future" organized by Global Business for Ukraine and the European Business Association in partnership with the Joint Chamber of Commerce Switzerland-Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South Caucasus (JCC) in Google office.
Oleksandr Bornyakov, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation for IT Development in Ukraine supported the point that people became a great source of support for IT. Thus, resilience in the country is fantastic – how people reorganize processes, deliver results, etc. Ukrainian IT companies continue to work and to hire people. By providing 45% of the country's export, IT is the one and only sector that grew in terms of export in 2022. All the stakeholders do a great job, hence, Ukraine can easily become a World IT Hub.
Dmytro Sholomko CEO at Google Ukraine, Anton Aschwanden Public Policy Lead Google Switzerland, Dorit Sallis Managing Director at JCC and Anna Derevyanko GB4U Cofounder and EBA Ukraine Executive Director gave welcome speeches.
Vladimir Vuskovic, Director, Product Management at Google Zurich shared Google experience in artificial intelligence.
Yury Antaniuk, Head of EPAM Ukraine presented the current situation in IT. He mentioned that in EPAM around 12000 people are working in Ukraine. Generally, the Ukrainian IT community is around 350 000 people. People work in winter, in shelters, sometimes with no conditions but, no matter what, keep productivity on a very high level. Still, Ukraine has even more opportunities to be attractive – because of people. They change mindsets. They demonstrate that we all are part of a global world. They show amazing resilience – cope with the problems and all the tasks with sometimes no Internet, electricity, etc. However, it’s crucial to have support from the government, for example, in terms of booking from mobilizations, short-term business trips for men. As we are in this situation together, hence, cooperation is crucial. As well as understanding that economic is as important as a military front. At the end Mr Antaniuk called the global community to cooperate with Ukrainian business and Ukrainian IT more!
Dima Gazda CEO & Founder at Esper Bionics and Kyrylo Goncharuk, CEO & Founder, CheckEye presented their startups. Esper Bionics – build smart robotic limbs, currently increase presence in Ukraine and hire people as Ukraine – is a great source of talented people (engineers). CheckEye - a cloud-based solution to detect diabetic retinopathy using photographic images of eye fundus through the ML/AI algorithm. Full CheckEye and Esper Bionics presentations read via the link.
Dominique Piotet, Board Member at UNIT.City, co-founder and CEO of HIT Foundation mentioned that UNIT.City – the first innovation park, it is still full of people – people come to work. They continue to help the community build companies and do tech. Their campus in Kharkiv was partially destroyed but in Kyiv is doing okey, and they continue building. They continue giving jobs to people, as for example, construction was severely hit. Moreover, they want to use technologies for rebuilding – they are going to print a school in Lviv (going to be the first school in the world that is printed). Last but not the least, Ukraine Fenix Tech Fond – will invest in early-stage startups (they want to support preside and side startups and mentor them). Mr Piotet concluded that the most important is to remember, we don’t need to rebuild Ukrainian tech – just to support the growth.
Aleksandr Romanishyn, Innovation Startups Entrepreneurship made an emphasis on the number of digitalized services in Ukraine. As digitalization is the thing Ukraine can be proud of and Ukraine will continue to move forward
Hence, we thank all the participants and speakers for great discussion and Ukraine will continue to move forward – to become the World IT Hub. As we have all the opportunities for that!
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