Kharkiv IT Cluster 2020: what the special year was like

IT Cluster IT Cluster

Kharkiv IT Cluster shares with you the results of the organization’s work and the most memorable events of 2020!

Despite all the difficulties and challenges, Kharkiv IT Cluster will remember this year as the one filled with changes, breakthrough, development, and productivity!

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The IT community work results

Though this year was a challenging one for Kharkiv IT Cluster it did not stop our IT community, and we are ready to share our breakthrough results!

The results of the Kharkiv IT Cluster work in numbers:

  • 14 new members
  • 14 new educational partners
  • 3 new business partners
  • More than 590,000 participants of the educational projects
  • More than 45 companies joined the initiatives
  • 250,000 dollars collected within the IT4Life project
  • 90 schools, colleges, and universities participated in the educational projects
  • More than 13,000 followers on social media
  • More than 13 educational projects and initiatives implemented during the year
  • More than 2000 teenagers from 5 Ukrainian cities participated in the educational projects
  • More than 130 university work programs and disciplines are being revised following the IT industry demands
  • More than 65 teachers participated in the Prof2IT project
  • More than 10,000 people from 12 countries participated in the educational forum NewEdu 2020.

All these results belong to the whole Kharkiv IT community. This is only the beginning on our way to creating the “Silicon Valley” of Ukraine in Kharkiv.

We have already made plans for the next year. We are going to implement even more initiatives, launch new projects, and provide our members with lots of cool values!

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Read about the most unforgettable events of 2020 below!

The beginning of the year: winter 2020

At the beginning of 2020, we were extremely inspired — we were ready for changes and even made our first steps towards them. On February 18, Kharkiv IT Cluster joined the work group on the development of the region at the meeting with the representatives of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration. The Cluster was to implement IT projects to unite the computer industry with state authorities.

In January, Olga Shapoval participated in the Davos 2020 Ukrainian House to discuss the position of Ukraine on the international market and the IT industry investment potential with other IT industry representatives.

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In January, we opened the New Members Welcome season — a series of meetings for Kharkiv IT Cluster members. Then, we participated in the Open Day of the Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics (NURE).

On February 14, Kharkiv IT Cluster participated in the discussion of the VI Eastern business forum “Smart Real Estate: Where the real estate market goes”.

Kharkiv IT Cluster and the pandemic

The epidemic and the quarantine had us all confused.
Despite all the difficulties, we did not stop our work! Kharkiv IT Cluster united the Kharkiv IT community and initiated the IT4Life project to help people during the pandemic. For less than six months, we have collected 250,000 US dollars to help medical workers and patients with coronavirus.

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On February 21, Olga Shapoval attended the program “Viddzerkallia” and talked about how the IT companies faced the corona crisis, helped to counter COVID-19, as well as about an all-Ukrainian platform RAZOMprotyCovid. Olga also attended the press center Press Club and spoke about the problems the IT business faced during the pandemic.

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Countering the pandemic was not the only area that the IT4Life project covered. Together with the Cluster companies, we bought houses for those affected by the fire in the Dvorichanskyi district and provided assistance in the relocation of Belarusian IT specialists in a difficult time for their country.

Spring—summer 2020

In March, Kharkiv IT Cluster participated in the business forum and the discussion about women in business: Women Techmakers Kharkiv Session #1.

In May, we spoke at the webinar “Clusters as the tool to counter crisis phenomena and the driver of regions development”. In June, we participated in the discussion “Equality and Diversity Policy: Business Experience”.

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On June 19, the director of Kharkiv IT Cluster Olga Shapoval and the governor Oleksii Kucher met with the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Republic of Latvia to Ukraine Juris Poikans.

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On July 21, Kharkiv IT Cluster joined an online meeting “IT education in Ukraine: problems and solutions” from the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance.

Autumn—winter 2020

In September, Kharkiv IT Cluster and the representative of the IT businesses met with the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, and, a little bit later, with the chairman of the organization “Office of Simple Solutions and Results” Mikheil Saakashvili.

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In the same month, the Cluster participated in the discussion of the Kharkiv International Legal Forum “Human rights and digital technologies: Why IT companies need to be responsible”.

On October 10, Olga Shapoval attended the Open Day of the Business Support Center Diya.Biznes, where she spoke about marketing strategies and trends in the IT industry.

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On October 12, Kharkiv IT Cluster took part in the Festival of Creative Industries from Create Kharkiv and received the honorary title of the Ambassador of Kharkiv Creative Industries.

On November 30, Kharkiv IT Cluster participated in the presentation of the first startup center in Kharkiv — SPARK.

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This year, Kharkiv IT Cluster became bigger: Amazon Web Services, Clutch, EU 4Digital, and UKRAINIAN CLUSTERS became our partners and opened amazing opportunities for our members’ business development.

Besides, this year we made a significant step towards the creation of the Silicon Valley of Ukraine in Kharkiv. Kharkiv IT Cluster signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Ecopolis KhTZ High-Tech Business Park.

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In 2020, we created a closed community of the Cluster members — PR community for which we regularly held closed thematic online meetings. We had held eight online meetups in four months!

One of the biggest events of this year was the IT day for students of the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School. The Cluster team and the representatives of member companies showed the students the IT Kharkiv, its opportunities, and prospects.

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International events of the year

We had lots of international events this year, and we are thrilled to share them with you!
Olga Shapoval, executive director of Kharkiv IT Cluster, participated in seven international events!

We took part in ruhrSUMMIT 2020, a B2B event from the German startup community, together with 450 startups from 50 countries. Olga participated as a speaker at such networking events as European Cluster Conference and EU4Digital Facility.

In December 2020, we held an international B2B Matchmaking IT Forum with Latvia, at which our member companies communicated with representatives of the Latvian IT business and got an opportunity to make future partnerships.

A little later, Olga Shapoval participated in the Digital Partnership round table with Germany.

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On December 15, Kharkiv IT Cluster joined the Kharkiv EDU Forum, where representatives of the Cluster member companies discussed the challenges for education in 2021.

At the end of the year, we held an online brainstorm of the Cluster’s educational committee, brainstorm in the format of the World Cafe “Challenges for IT business in a pandemic” with our members, as well as a general meeting of all members and partners of Kharkiv IT Cluster.

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This year was full of interesting and important events for the IT industry of the Kharkiv region and Ukraine in general. Kharkiv IT Cluster aims to achieve even more ambitious results in 2021 to improve the environment for the Kharkiv technology business.

Stay tuned — become better in 2021 with us!

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