More than necessary

Andrey Kolodyuk, managing partner of the venture Fund AVentures Capital, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Association of venture capital and private equity (UVCA), about why the Ukrainian house could not accommodate everyone

I am attending Davos since 2008 and can say, seen it all. But when UVCA initiated and the Ukrainian house, I did not expect that this panel and the evening performances will make such a strong impression on the forum regulars. In fact, Ukraine at Davos-2018 was news.

On the eve of the forum, we, the organizers of the Ukrainian house, worried that people at our events will not be enough. But when we started the project, everything happened exactly the opposite. On our 15 panels, which were primarily dedicated to technology investments, were recorded in 5-6 times more people than could fit room.

To attend events in the Ukrainian house wished more than a thousand people. Most of them had to refuse. For Davos it is rather the exception to the rule, because usually on the daily panel is logged in the best case, a few dozen people.

From the beginning of preparation for the forum, I said that Davos is a competition for content and speakers and we have deliberately tried to sustain this paradigm. On a panel we only invited one speaker from Ukraine, preferring to participants, influential and well-known in international circles. Directly Ukraine, we have devoted only a few panels. Most of the events addressed the global themes and technologies. People were primarily attracted by the content and only then the Ukrainian house in itself. But during the discussion we told our guests about the role of Ukraine in each of the areas, which were dedicated to technology and investment panel.

Among the events forum I would like to mention is a joint panel with the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and President of the European Bank for reconstruction and development (EBRD) Chakrabarti Itself. EBRD has invested in Ukraine of 17 billion euros. At our event Chakrabarti said publicly what now for the EBRD Ukraine is among the three States most attractive for investment. This was a very important message at the meeting with international investors in the Ukrainian house. And among them were not only those who invest in Ukraine, but also people who are not yet familiar with our country, for which the words of the head of the EBRD became a revelation.

So much of our success is due to the compliance organized by Ukraine of measures the main trend of the Davos forum, which was first called technological, not economic, as it was during the 48 years of its existence. The dominant part is represented on the forum content really dedicated to the technology. The event, which took place next to the Ukrainian house, was mainly devoted to the blockchain and cryptocurrency. On this occasion, the regulars joked that it’s not even a tech forum and conference on the blockchain.

In this context, the recent publication of a report by Citibank, according to which Ukraine is among the five countries recognized as world leaders in the introduction of the blockchain, played for us. Some forum members interested in joint projects and investments in this area. And in General we were able to hold hundreds of meetings and establish friendships with those who want to open in Ukraine R&D offices, data centers, forming teams, etc.

Unfortunately, I can’t name the man — a billionaire, a very well-known in the venture business, which made us a proposal for joint investment in a company of Ukrainian origin, where the work of Ukrainian specialists. But I am sure that such agreements after Davos-2018 will be a lot.

After the end of the forum we, like last year, going to bring to Ukraine a lot of interested people — investors and entrepreneurs by organizing Ukraine Discovery Tour with Global Shapers. In 2017 there were 35 people, this year will obviously be much greater. Guests we plan to split into two thematic groups: the first will focus on the blockchain and cryptocurrency, the second — on venture capital investments and technology businesses. Moreover, already agreed that in Odessa in October of 2018 we will organize a separate conference for Chinese investors.

And now we’re already starting to prepare for the Davos-2019. February 7 will host the event for potential sponsors interested in joint participation in the forum next year.

To sow anew

Artem Belenkov, Director of the company SmartFarming, one of the initiators of the project AgTech Ukraine, about prospects of Ukraine on the markets of agricultural technologies

If briefly to summarize, I am very pleased with the trip. New insights, new friends, new ideas with “old friends”, a lot of interesting content, great sightseeing. The project AgroHub we held a panel discussion and received positive feedback from the audience, requests for cooperation from other countries. I believe that this is the most weighty and high-quality communication of our state in the field of AgTech. It is important now to continue and to make Ukraine a real hub of innovation in agriculture.

She Chakrabarti, the EBRD President, spoke about the demand from large farmers of India at the experience and achievements of Ukrainian agricultural holdings and large technological companies in the field of AgTech. EBRD ready to Finance such a technology transfer. We will communicate with the Bank and market participants. I hope that it will give the result.

In General, in addition to his native Ukrainian house, we visited a lot of other “houses” were awesome parties. I am sure that next year Ukraine will again be your “home”. I will seriously prepare for the next forum to spend the time as efficiently as possible.

The festival of technology

Taras Kytsmey, co-founder and Board member of SoftServe, about the fundamental difference of this year’s forum from all the previous

The current presentation of Ukraine in Davos can be considered fully successful. Ukrainian house became one of the liveliest and most popular locations during the last week. Due to the high quality of content, active involvement in the event top officials, representatives of big business and thought leaders, the event attracted the attention of international media.

We managed to position Ukraine as a strategic partner for business and investment in several sectors of the economy. The main message of Ukrainian House Davos was creativity, innovation and opportunity. Around these key themes has built a rich 4-day program. Even presenting a traditional industry like agriculture, the main emphasis is on the potential application of modern technologies in the agricultural sector. And, of course, the key themes of the discussions was the innovation and development of creative cities, information technology, data science, and cryptocurrency — topics relevant to the global agenda.

Another important, in my opinion, observation. During the world economic forum, the main street of Davos reminds festival, where the individual buildings are representative of the countries as well as world-renowned companies like Google or Facebook. It so happened that the Ukrainian and Russian branches this year were close and they really contrasted with each other. Sponsor the participation of Russia in the world economic forum was organized by the state, while Ukraine presented investment funds, business associations, IT companies and innovation parks. This illustrates two fundamentally different philosophies: centralized, where the key role plays the power vertical and democratic, built on the principles of self-government. Turn to Ukrainian House Davos eloquently illustrates some of the philosophies more in line with the global trends. In General, after visiting the forum once again convinced that Ukraine has extremely high potential and she’s Mature enough to represent themselves on the world economic platform.

Country circuits

Michael Chaonan, the founder of the first Bitcoin Agency in Eastern Europe and Ukraine KUNA, about how Ukraine can become the world centre of cryptocurrency

Ukraine was put on the world map as a country with the most promising implementation of blockchain technology. We have become very interesting from the point of view of the size of the community, developers and investors. Ukraine has also become a country where predict future development of crypto – currencies and decentralized. That is, we officially declared itself. And this information was just published in the press, and appeared at the world Economic forum in Davos. Accordingly, world leaders, investors, economists and major companies received such important information from trusted sources.

We’ve had a lot of meetings in the Ukrainian house. There was a constant flow of people and long queues. Many guests were not from Ukraine. Among them are representatives of major international funds, investment companies and global banks.

I am sure that next year the house will be even bigger and we will hold multiple panels in parallel. Ukraine interested in. Davos-2018 is a success, it must repeat, and scale.