Tapping Ukraine’s IT potential
August 28, 2012
“The level of university training and the supply of fresh talent is the number one problem currently faced by the sector,” says Inna Sergiychuk, CEO of Ukrainian Hi-Tech Initiative. “Ukrainian students might graduate with good theoretical knowledge, but they have poor practical skills, and this is forcing large companies to have to set up their own training centres to secure competent staff.”
“Hiring is difficult,” agrees Eugene Novikov, director at the Ukraine design centre of US company Mindspeed Technologies, which develops semiconductor solutions for communications applications. “While those who enjoyed free and good training in the USSR and right after are all either abroad or in senior positions, the prospect for the flow of new heads is looking pessimistic,” says Novikov. “Technical training has gone through a decade or so of deep degradation – the state universities were and still are very poorly funded.” Backing up Novikov’s complaints, the respected Shanghai ranking of the world’s top 500 universities released August 15 did not include a single Ukrainian institution. “With a bit of government support, one could surely attempt to bring at least one Ukrainian university into this ranking,” says Andreas Umland, a German Ukraine expert teaching at Kyiv Mohyla university. More mundane problems such as the decaying infrastructure dog the sector, says Novikov: “We have power outages even in Kyiv and have to buy expensive uninterruptible power supplies.” Source: Financial Times