The Ukraine Tech Summit was hosted in London on June 12, 2024. This event brought together representatives of top tech companies, government officials, and investors from Ukraine and the UK. It included panel discussions and the announcement of $100,000 grants. The international event was sponsored by Google for Startups and Roosh, an investment group that develops and scales technology businesses. Serhii Tokarev, the co-founder of Roosh, commented on the event results.
The summit’s objective was to stimulate the recovery of Ukraine’s technology segment, facilitate its entry into international markets, and encourage international cooperation. Serhii Tokarevadmitted that the event’s panel discussions were devoted to Ukraine’s tech ecosystem’s development and management and investments in Ukrainian innovations.
The summit’s organizers highlighted that Ukraine has long been an important player in the UK tech market. More and more Ukrainian specialists are joining British tech companies.
“It is very important to focus on investing in Ukraine now to ensure economic stability and growth of the tech sector during the full-scale invasion,” said Vladyslav Bazikalov, founder of Ukraine Tech Summit.
Serhii Tokarev noticed that during the panel discussion, participants also discussed the opportunities for growth of the tech market players. The speakers noted that the total value of Ukraine’s startup ecosystem has grown to €28 billion.
“For a very long time, UK entrepreneurs have collaborated with Ukraine’s amazing tech talent. Now, the UK is benefitting from Ukraine’s startup ecosystem, from SaaS to climate tech to defense tech. Ukraine’s resilience at both personal and startup levels is a key reason to partner with Ukraine’s tech ecosystem,” added Mike Butcher, editor-at-large of TechCrunch.
Although Ukraine has an advantage over European countries, when it comes to technology implementation, some international tech business policies do not allow collaboration with it. The main reason is that Ukraine is in a war zone. Serhii Tokarev thinks this fact should be revised.
“For more than two years, Ukrainian specialists have been adapting to working in a big war. Our specialists are giving 100%, creating startups and developing them despite the shelling and blackouts. After all, Ukrainians have no margin for error: if we make a mistake, investors and partners will simply leave our market. What we need now is to spread the stories of successful cooperation with Ukraine,”emphasized Tokarev.
At the event, the $10 million fund was created in partnership with 1991, Ukraine’s largest accelerator. Due to this, Ukrainian tech companies can obtain grants of $100,000 and expert assistance from Google. Below are a few of the startups that participated in the program:
· Ailand Systems, a developer of smart autonomous drones that detect mines;
· BazaIT, an IT recruiting platform;
· Carbominer, a startup that has developed a technology for capturing carbon dioxide from the air;
· Clearly, a platform for finding psychotherapists;
· Eddy, a digital space for educational institutions.
