The Ukraine Tech Gem Conference in San Francisco has the potential to give much-needed visibility for many budding Ukrainian technology firms. Taking place on Sept. 18, the event is billing itself as an opportunity to reach an international audience for Ukraine-based firms that would otherwise struggle to get publicity in the incredibly competitive technology sector.
The most notable
speakers at the conference will be acting
Economy Minister Pavlo Sheremeta, and Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv where
a high-tech innovation park called Bionic Hill is being developed. There will
also be over 30 international technology entrepreneurs and pioneers, including
Dave McClure, the founding partner at 500 Startups, and Sridhar Solur, director
of HP mobility services.
The Kyiv Post asked
one of the organizers, Konstantin Vasyuk, IT
committee coordinator at the European Business Association in Kyiv, what the main aim of the event was. “We
decided to make an investment in our own country,” he said, adding “U.T. Gem
will present Ukraine as the brain basket of Europe”.
When asked about the
potential for growth in the Ukrainian IT sector, Mr. Vasyuk responded, “we have
current growth of up to 40 percent. We expect the growth to continue at around
30-40 percent, given existing trends and appropriate conditions”. On the subject
of which services were likely to be most successful, Mr. Vasyuk stated “given
the current situation, we see that for real growth we can only rely on the
export sector (outsourcing).”
He also observed that
“Ukrainian IT firms are at a stage where they are making full-cycle products,
rather than just programmers writing the code. Now, we are making complex
solutions for customers, sometimes costing as much as $1 billion.”
Ukraine is one of the
fastest growing technology and IT markets in Europe. Now, there are
approximately 17 million. Many Ukrainian startups have been successful
internationally. Smartphone applications from Ukrainian developers such as
Waterbalance, which measures and helps control the level of water in one’s
body, have proven popular around the world.
These statistics,
however, only paint half of the picture. In fact, there is still a very long
way to go for Ukraine’s tech sector. Ukraine outsources about $2 billion
annually in IT outsourcing services, while its e-commerce market is valued at
approximately $1.6 billion, which is very low for a European country with a
population of 45 million. In comparison, Ukraine’s western neighbor Poland,
with a population of 38.5 million, has an e-commerce market worth $4.7 billion.
Part of the problem is that internet penetration in Ukraine is about 50 percent. In wealthy European countries such as Norway,
it can be as high as 97 percent, while the European Union average is 76.5 percent.
Kyiv Post intern Max
Hunder can be reached at [email protected].
