Rebuilding Ukraine: Kharkiv IT Cluster’s vision
IT ClusterToday, the whole country has united its efforts and rallied for the sake of bringing Victory closer.
The events that have gripped the country since February 24 have become a real challenge for business and Ukraine’s further economic revival.
That is why it is now very important to develop One Voice and form a unified position among businesses to create a single and powerful vector for the country’s recovery.
On June 7, Kyiv hosted the Coalition of Business Communities Forum. The event was dedicated to forming a common position of business on the principles of Ukraine’s recovery. Today, the Coalition consolidates nearly 100 business associations.
This year, representatives of business, the Government, and the Presidential Office joined the event.
IT on the forum
The moderator of the forum, Valeriy Pekar, President of Euroindex and Board mentor, noted that IT was the only industry that grew in Ukraine in 2022. However, how is the industry doing today?
In 2022, the Kharkiv IT Cluster community doubled in size, and the city of Kharkiv paid 9% more taxes than last year.
Olga notes that 95% of Kharkiv IT Cluster companies resumed their operations in April 2022.
«IT community members have donated more than UAH 1 billion to the army and humanitarian aid and continue to pay taxes to the Kharkiv budget,» says Olga Shapoval, speaking about the IT community’s activities.
Despite the positive growth dynamics, the trend is now negative. Olga Shapoval presented the Kharkiv IT Cluster’s vision of the country’s revitalization and noted that the IT business currently faces 3 global challenges that systematically affect the results of the entire IT industry.
Lack of transparent travel abroad
The positive results for the previous year were made possible by contracts and agreements that were concluded before February 2022. In-person meetings are necessary to extend contracts — our foreign partners want to see us, but because of the inability to travel even for a short time, Ukrainian businesses lose the trust of international customers and partnerships, respectively.
Human capital
People are the capital of the IT industry. First and foremost, we are talking about young people and talents, so all stakeholders should already be concerned about education and find solutions to retain students and applicants who are currently in Ukraine and are leaving to study abroad. This issue is not about the quality of education, but rather about security.
«According to the survey results, there are twice as many children who want to return to Ukraine compared to their parents’ answers,» emphasizes Olga Shapoval.
The second critical issue concerning people is the booking of specialists. Today, an IT specialist creates 5 jobs near him or her, so the arithmetic is quite simple:
📌 If 1 IT specialist loses his or her job, the state loses 6 jobs;
📌 the IT company loses a contract with a foreign customer, which finds a replacement specialist in another country to avoid additional risks.
The issues of tomorrow
«Today, there is no vision of how to retain talent and what to do with education in general. We run the risk that in 3 years we will have no one to hire, and we will not be able to replace them with imported talent, because the competition in the global market is very high,» Olga Shapoval quoted.
As the biggest challenge and opportunity at the same time, the executive director of Kharkiv IT Cluster noted the sustainable support of the power of all regions, regardless of their geographical location. This is the only way to have a powerful country.
«How do we revive Kharkiv?» asked the moderator of the meeting, Valeriy Pekar.
«People are returning to the city every day. The visual effect is confirmed by statistics: in April 2022, there were about 400 thousand people in Kharkiv, and today there are 1.1 million. In addition, Kharkiv IT Cluster held offline events with community members, and the meetings in Kharkiv had the largest turnout. Therefore, the question of people returning to Kharkiv is rhetorical for me,» shared her own observation of the executive director of Kharkiv IT Cluster.
The Forum of the Coalition of Business Communities for the Modernization of Ukraine brought together many representatives from different business areas, but they are all united by common problems and a vision of the future of Ukraine.
According to a survey of entrepreneurs, the majority of them noted the following key challenges for business:
📌 unpredictable development of the situation in Ukraine and in the domestic market;
📌 unpredictable actions of the state that could worsen the state of the business;
📌 obstacles from regulatory and/or fiscal authorities.
«We shouldn’t wait until the war is over, we shouldn’t put off life until after the Victory, we should build the future of our country today and unite around this goal.»
Following the principle «Ukraine first» will help us overcome all challenges and build the Ukraine of the future.
Join the progressive community of Kharkiv IT Cluster — let’s join forces for the future of Ukrainian IT and our country.
