Heavily bearded and well-built, Vasyl Zadvornyy, 32, does not look like a techy, but he’s spent 15 years in the IT industry and now heads one of the most ambitious tech projects in Ukraine – the ProZorro electronic public procurement system.
Zadvornyy became the CEO of ProZorro almost a month ago, on Nov. 15, and says he intends to set international standards in public procurement, developing a true IT company out of the state-owned enterprise that now runs the ProZorro system.
Zadvornyy is optimistic, despite the heavy workload that developing the system will entail.
“Since my appointment, I’ve reduced my sleep time by one-third, and didn’t notice it at all, (for) I’ve got a lot of drive, a lot of things that should be done.”
ProZorro started operating in trial mode in 2014. In the almost two years since then, it has proved its effectiveness and saved the country up to Hr 8 billion ($320 million) by cutting corruption out of the state procurement process.
That, in turn, has made the ProZorro system a symbol of successful reform in Ukraine, making what had been one of the most corrupt areas in Ukraine, public procurement, one of the most transparent for the government, suppliers, and the public.
With the law “On Public Procurement” coming into effect on Aug. 1, it became compulsory for government agencies and ministries to use ProZorro when procuring products together worth more than Hr 200,000 ($8,000) or if ordering services worth more than Hr 1.5 million ($60,000).
But the process of implementing the ProZorro system won’t stop with its use becoming mandatory, Zadvornyy says as he shows the Kyiv Post around the system’s headquarters, an old, Soviet-era office building in downtown Kyiv.
“ProZorro itself is about constant change,” Zadvornyy says. “Our philosophy is to accumulate best practice in reform and (spread) these practices to other areas – even to other countries.”
In fact, ProZorro has already generated interest around the globe, the system having already won several multinational awards, including the most prestigious one in the procurement field, the Open Government Award 2016, which was presented on Dec. 7 in London.
According to Zadvornyy, a lot of other countries are now interested in implementing electronic procurement systems similar to Ukraine’s ProZorro.
“We’re at the cutting edge in changing the world,” he said. “We can develop a modern way of how public procurement should occur all over the world, and how governments, public society and business will collaborate with each other in the future.”
Useful data
On taking over from his predecessor Alexander Nakhod, Zadvornyy said he was first impressed by the amount of data ProZorro has generated. Zadvornyy claims the system now has the world’s largest database documenting real patterns of behavior of participants in public auctions.
The goal now, according to him, is to understand how to harness this data, analyze it, and apply artificial intelligence technologies to improve the system. This, Zadvornyy says, will allow ProZorro to continue to be up-to-date, tech-driven, and an example for others.
Current situation
Zadvornyy says the state-owned ProZorro company is currently in a standard situation for any startup – it needs to find its way to transit from the startup stage to a fully-fledged company.
“(My predecessors) started ProZorro as a classical startup – with a big boom of new functionalities and features, with great first results, a great level of stability and security,” Zadvornyy said. “But right now we have to combine all these things in a solid sustainable process. This will help maintain the (targeted) growth rate.”
“We are now in the classical step of transiting from a successful startup to a successful enterprise,” he adds.
A tech company
ProZorro is at its heart a piece of software, but as Zadvornyy points out, an IT company is about more just information technologies.
“When we are talking about creating an IT company out of ProZorro, we are talking about making a modern company, a company that’s looking to future, participating in modern trends, and being on the cutting edge.”
He said the team is currently looking into ways to implement artificial intelligence algorithms to detect suspicious activities in procurement auctions, even if there is little evidence to go on.
“So, the future of ProZorro is about things like artificial intelligence, but it’s also about collaboration with the government and the public,” says Zadvornyy.
Kyiv Post staff writer Denys Krasnikov can be reached at [email protected].
