On July 4 the first meeting of initiative group took place, dedicated to organization and realization of Ukrainian-American Information and Communication Technology Cooperation Forum on November 7 of this year in Washington, USA, supported by the Embassy of Ukraine in the USA. This Forum will be the second one (the first one took place in the Embassy of Ukraine in the USA in June 2002) and will come also as one of the road-show events of Ukrainian high-tech in the US organized by AVentures company.
The meeting took place in office facilities of the Center for Innovations Development (
www.cid.kiev.ua), managing the project “Ukrainian-American ICT Cooperation Forum”, which is located in building #7 of Paton electric welding institute at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Bozhenko St.
The meeting was attended by representatives of AVentures (
www.AVentures.biz), Euroindex (
www.euroindex.com.ua), ICC (Internet Consulting & Communications –
www.icc.com.ua), Softline (
www.softline.kiev.ua), Softjourn (
www.softjourn.com), UASWD Association (
www.uaswd.org.ua), UkrSoft Consortium (
www.ukrsoft.biz), Ukrinian chamber of science and technology, manager of “Adonis” project in Ukraine (ukrtex.com.ua), Scientific and technical consortium and Technopark (Paton EWI –
www.tp-paton.org.ua), Center for Innovations Development.
The main issues of the agenda were the following:
- Forum’s mission
- Optimality of Forum’s place and time
- Format of Forum
- Principles of organizational committee formation
- Information support organization
- Funding
In the course of the meeting and discussion the participants elaborated the following principal provisions:
1. Forum’s main mission – promotion of Ukrainian IT industry and its leaders on international market. It will be facilitated by dynamic preliminary PR campaign through special purpose Ukrainian and American mass media; selection of optimal format of the event and formation of the membership list both from Ukrainian and American side; presentation of Ukrainian ICT industry research performed by one of the leading international analytical company.
2. The format of the Forum will include plenary sessions, where analytical materials will be presented, reviews, round tables for presentations and discussions of the most successful Ukrainian projects and examples of successfully implemented Ukrainian-American projects. Such presentations can play a positive part in promotion of Ukrainian IT products on American market.
4. To ensure maximum efficiency of the Ukrainian companies’ participation in this event, the list of invited members from the American side will be formed, taking into account their recommendations and requests.
5. It is necessary to involve corresponding PR channels both from Ukrainian and American side for information support of the event.
6. The Organizational Committee of the Forum will consist of the companies and persons, who will actively contribute to attainment of its goals and can engage authoritative participants and funding in the event.
One of important elements of Ukrainian IT industry promotion is making a corresponding research. It is suggested to be performed with the help of MarketVisio (Gartner Group –
www.gartner.com).
Such analysis of Ukrainian offshore software development market’s potential, backed by the name and methodology of Gartner Group, is considered to be a useful tool to form positive image of Ukrainian software development sector and to support Ukrainian companies, focused on delivery of export outsourcing services and software products.
Events dedicated to celebration of 80 years anniversary from the day of academician Glushkov’s birth are going to take place in September 2003. It would be expedient to use the public response on this matter to perform the Forum’s mission. Participants also expressed an idea to create a film describing the history of Ukrainian science in creation of artificial intelligence, development of scientific and production potential in programming field, the best examples of work of Ukrainian companies on outsourcing market.
The Forum will be organized at the expense of organizational and sponsorship contributions of its participants, as well as the technical and organizational support of the Embassy of Ukraine in the USA. The amount of organizational contribution to participate in the Forum is still being considered.
