That’s also the prevailing spirit in the Ukrainian information technology venture business today. Granted, this community has never been too big, and therefore its members were never too isolated from each other — however, these mark the peak of bonding.
The feeling of solidarity among Ukrainian tech market players became especially clear to me this week, after I came from the United Kingdom to Kyiv to cover the local IT market for Kyiv Post. Indeed, the news and posts in social networks while living abroad give a general impression, but looking at the situation from the inside brings it to a totally different level.
In the first few days after my plane landed in Boryspil Airport, I met several people representing different players on the market, and didn’t sense any kind of rivalry or animosity towards the others. Five years ago, when I lived in the Ukrainian capital and wrote for the Kompyuternoe Obozrenie magazine (the community was even smaller than it is now at that time), I couldn’t say that the whole industry was united the way it is now.
It is actually quite interesting to look deep into the metamorphoses of the industry not every day but once in five years to glean the most important changes. This makes me hope that I will be able to pinpoint and show them to the Kyiv Post readers in the following months.
Another interesting thing is to compare the Ukrainian startup ecosystem and tech industry in general to those in other Eastern European countries, our closest neighbors. Having written for a few years about tech in Central and Eastern Europe among other things, I’m even more fascinated by how Ukrainian tech venture market players support each other and the community in general. It’s important that with the tech venture market in Ukraine going through a tough time, a sound infrastructure is forming, not just pieces scattered here and there.
Formally, the uniting process has manifested into organizations being created within the tight knit community. UAngel, an association of Ukrainian business angels, was founded back in June, while the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, which brings together investors and other infrastructure players, was founded in August. Although they aren’t the first efforts to formally unite the market, these two initiatives do look healthy enough to make it through the turmoil in which we’ve all been caught.
A great addition to the list of initiatives is the conference U.T.Gem in San Francisco taking place in two weeks, which I’ll do my best to cover on the ground. Despite all the issues, the time is ripe to showcase Ukrainian tech talent, from software developers to entrepreneurs to researchers, and ensure they get the recognition they deserve.
Last but not least, it is clearly recognizable that people in the tech industry are entering government. Some that come to mind are Microsoft Ukraine’s former CEO Dmitry Shymkiv, former Bionic Hill president Victor Halasyuk, and the well-known Internet business professional Aleksandr Olshanskiy.
Thus, what is happening in the Ukrainian tech community is really great. If there is something positive for the tech venture industry that happened in the past months, it is the unprecedented spirit of unity shared by most if not all key people and businesses. Likewise, if there’s anything important to keep after the world ceases to resemble a mad kaleidoscope — it’s this spirit, too.
Andrii Degeler is the Kyiv Post’s information technology reporting fellow. Degeler has been covering the IT business in Ukraine and internationally since 2009. His fellowship is sponsored by AVentures Capital, Ciklum, FISON and SoftServe. He can be reached on Twitter (@shlema) or [email protected].
