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chilling phrase: “We’re from Bankova...and we are here to help.”
The large scale factory complex of one of the Soviet Union’s largest tractor plants will be reborn as a “Ukrainian Silicon Valley” ​under a proposal by Oleksander Yaroslavsky, Kharkiv’s leading industrialist. The Kharkiv Tractor Plant, producer of 3mn tractors, would be reborn as ‘Ecopolis KhTZ,” a high-tech business park under a plan presented yesterday to the Kharkiv City Council. “The best international architects and commercial consultants are already working with us,” said Vitaliy Barannikov, Ecopolis director from Yaroslavsky’s DCH Group. Noting that Belarus companies will be invited to move there, he said: “We plan to create a full cycle for the implementation of high-tech projects - education, development, their introduction into production.”
The World Bank sets ambitious highspeed wireless internet goals for 2025: ​4G coverage for 95% of the population; full 5G coverage along major road and rail routes. If integrated with traffic control and emergency services, the World Bank says smart technology can reduce road deaths by 8-10%, reduce travel time by 15-20%, and speed up the response time of ambulances by 25-30%. The targets are posted on the website of the Digital Transformation Ministry. Today, 5G is only in the testing phase in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s IT workers are older, increasingly female and more fluent in JavaScript​, according to a new study by GlobalLogic. Compared to five years ago, the female portion of the workforce has grown to 25% today, for 14% in 2015. The average IT specialist is now 28 years old – one year older than five years ago. And 41% are now married. The portion of surveyed engineers using JavaScript is now 18%, ten times the 2010 level of 1.9%. Since 2015, jobs have changed -- the share of testers is up 45%, and the share of developers is down 16%. “The second half of this year will be more optimistic for the entire industry,” predicts Andrey Yavorskiy, GlobalLogic’s vice president for strategy and technologies. “Digital transformation creates a demand for developers and testers, new IT specialties.”
President Zelenskiy strongly backs the 5% tax rate for ‘autonomous’ IT employees​, a fraction of Ukraine’s standard 18% tax rate. “This industry is developing in the country not due to the state support, but due to the intelligence of Ukrainians,” he told IT executives in Lviv on Friday. “One of the steps that the state can take is not to increase the tax burden on this [IT] industry.” He said he sees IT as key to modernizing Ukraine: “Everyone is saying: ‘we need honest customs, honest law enforcement agencies, we need to overcome corruption.’ We all understand that the human factor is very difficult to fix. But digital and IT industry can do it.”
Investments in Ukrainian IT start-ups totalled $510mn last year​, according to the annual report of the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association. The sum of 111 deals, this figure was 50% higher than 2018. This year has been slower, but volumes often rise in the fourth quarter.
The draft State Budget calls for spending $100mn to accelerate government digitalization​, easing interactions between citizen and the bureaucracy. Using Estonia as a model, Ukraine intends to move more and more processes – such as obtaining a birth certificate – online. Ukraine’s new Ministry of Digital Transformation says digitizing the “17 most common services” Ukraine will save $45mn year in corruption costs and wasted time.
70​ UKRAINE Country Report​ October 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com