Editor’s Note: The Kyiv Post is a media partner of Ukraine House Davos.
Ukraine will increase its visibility at the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of the global elite — politicians, activists and busines executives — in Davos, Switzerland, with the opening this year of the first Ukraine House Davos.
Ukraine House Davos will be a five-day conference sideline venue, featuring discussions, panels and receptions. The platform will mostly feature panel discussions on technology, business and investment themes. It will be open Jan. 22-26.
The organizer — the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA) — hopes that Ukraine House Davos, which will promote Ukraine as a technology partner, will lead to new projects and investments, according to the chairman of the Ukraine House Davos supervisory board, Andriy Kolodyuk.
“We don’t want to talk about Ukraine’s politics — it’s the old agenda as we call it. But the new agenda is that Ukraine is really playing a significant role in technology partnerships,” he said.
When Kolodyuk visited the conference in Davos for the first time in 2008, he was struck by how other countries presented themselves. He began to think Ukraine needed to do something similar.
So last year the UVCA launched a test program, called Ukrainian Davos Nights. The two evening reception events were a great success: With around 400 people showing up, it was overbooked, said Horizon Capital CEO Lenna Koszarny, a member of the Ukraine House Davos organizing committee.
The 50-year-old World Economic Forum last year attracted top executives like former U. S. Vice-President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Theresa May, Google CEO Sergey Brin, IMF Chief Christine Lagarde and others. U. S. President Donald Trump has announced his decision to attend this year’s forum, which opens on Jan. 23.
The forum is financed by partner companies — typically leading international companies from various sectors. Forum membership and partnership fees start at $62,000. Non-business participants in the annual meeting, namely leaders from civil society, the arts, young global and media leaders, heads of state and ministers from over 70 countries, are exempt from paying fees, according to the forum’s website.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko attended the forum in 2017 and this year is scheduled to give a speech at Ukraine House Davos on Jan. 25. Besides Poroshenko, Ukrainian deputies, Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, and others will speak at the conference.
To host Ukraine House Davos, the organizers rented a two-story building on Promenade Street in Davos, not far from the main conference center, where they will hold more than 10 events related to technology, data science, the agriculture business, blockchain technology, artificial intelligence and investment opportunities.
Besides the main organizer UVCA, Ukraine House Davos is backed by the Western NIS Enterprise Fund, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Ciklum, IT Association Ukraine, Horizon Capital, SocialBoost and others.
Yulia Poroshenko presents her Agrohub with billionaire and agricultural holding Myronivsky Hliboprodukt Yuriy Kosyuk on Nov. 14 at Kyiv’s Frat Social Club. (Yaroslav Shurov)
Agriculture innovation company Agrohub, owned by Yuliya Poroshenko, the daughter-in-law of the president, is a partner of the panel on innovations in the agriculture sector on Jan. 23. Yuliya Poroshenko will be on the panel.
Koszarny emphasizes that Ukraine House Davos was organized mostly by women. It will also feature an International Women’s Power Hour, hosted by Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister for European and EuroAtlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze.
Inspired by the success of last year’s Ukrainian Nights events, Koszarny said Ukraine House Davos would be focusing on “amplifying Ukraine’s voice on the global stage.”
Alexa Chopivsky, director of the Ukraine House Davos organizing committee, sees active communication with the international community as key to improving Ukraine’s future opportunities. Without it, she said, Ukraine won’t be able to realize its potential in terms of engaging with the international investment community.
“We hope to target people who have had little or no previous contact or experience with Ukraine, and introduce them to the many rich investment opportunities here — particularly in the tech and innovation industry,” Chopivsky said.
Marina Vyshegorodskikh, senior advisor to the board of directors of Ciklum, recalled that last year her company was the only information technology company from Ukraine to attend the Ukrainian Nights events. In 2018, by contrast, the tech industry will be represented by six other Ukrainian companies besides Ciklum — Eleks, EPAM, Innovecs, Intellias, N-iX, and SoftServe.
Vyshegorodskikh said Ukraine already has a proven reputation in the tech sector, but that it needs to do more in research and development and full-cycle work, instead of just execution.
But to do that, Ukraine has to go on the hunt for partners — hence the events in Davos.
“We see the value of promoting Ukraine not by sitting in Ukraine, but by being where our potential clients are,” Vyshegorodskikh said.
