Expanding Boundaries Between Swedish Business and the Ukrainian Government

We have continued our collaboration with the Ukrainian government in order to build the most digital country in the world with the help of innovation.

On December 1st, we participated in an online meeting with Ukrainian public sector representatives and our colleagues from other businesses that have strong ties with Sweden.

It goes without saying how proud we are to drive this ambitious initiative and we are extremely grateful to the Swedish Embassy in Ukraine and Minister Fedorov personally for their support.

The meeting was kicked-off and led by the honorable Swedish Ambassador to Ukraine Tobias Thyberg. He could not hide his admiration for the digitalization processes in Ukraine and noted Sweden’s involvement in it: “Sweden is a longstanding partner of Ukraine. We participated in the development of the Trembita system as well as other software and digital services. We want to not only be partners in the development, but also business partners,” said the Ambassador.

Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Digital Transformation, talked about his dream of making Ukraine the most comfortable and transparent country in the world in terms of the relationship between the state and its people.

He proudly shared the fascinating results of his team’s work. Thus, Ukraine has become the very first country in the world to implement a fully digital ID. We were among the first countries in Europe to introduce a digital driver’s license. And today Fedorov’s team is on its way to transition literally all government services online. Imagine — there are no piles of paper, long queues, and no stress. All of these services will be available in the blink of an eye in just one united app called Diia. In fact, there are over 6 million people in Ukraine who already use this service.

Mr. Fedorov also shared the upcoming plans of the Ministry with the participants. Besides making all public services available 100% online, the team wants to cover 95% of the Ukrainian territory with high-speed mobile Internet and wants to raise the share of the Ukrainian IT industry’s GDP up to 10% (today, it fluctuates between 3,7% and 4,2%).

Speaking of the near future plans and the crucial role of the IT industry in them, the Minister emphasized the urgent need for cooperation between business and private companies on the path of Ukraine’s digitalization. His thoughts were well echoed by Valery Krasovsky, CEO and co-founder of Sigma Software: “I think what Mykhailo and his team are doing is amazing. Their ideas fully resonate with what we are trying to do at Sigma Software. So we want to facilitate and deepen our cooperation with the Ministry and the Ukrainian government. We believe that our experience and our fellow partner’s knowledge and expertise will be much appreciated, because Swedish companies have already progressed a lot when it comes to digitalization.”

Valery explained how the company helps with other state projects. Recently Sigma Software signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Diia.Business Center in Kharkiv, the first Entrepreneurship Support Center with a consulting area for micro, small, and medium-sized businesses. Our company will furnish a business process management solution for the Center in terms of the Sigma Software corporate social responsibility initiatives. The solution is based on the technologies of our partner Middleware Inc.: Corezoid Process Engine and Control.events.

According to Sigma Software’s CEO, Ukraine is at the beginning of its digitalization path. Unlike other countries, Ukraine doesn’t have legacy systems. Thus, many solutions are created from scratch. “However, this is not the most efficient way, since this approach requires significant time and investment. I believe that the best example for Ukraine to follow is Dubai, which began digitalization under similar conditions. They decided to take the innovative and use the most suitable ready-made solutions, and adjusted them to all the requirements while using them in the field”, says Valery.

“There are numerous great systems on the market and many of them are Swedish solutions. The Experience of the Swedes can be very useful for Ukraine. Just as Sigma Software has a solid background in digitalization and there are over 20 of the company’s products in our ecosystem”, he added.

Moreover, Sweden is among the leading countries and pioneers in the spread and use of digital technologies. In 2017 the Swedish government launched a new Digital Strategy that’s overall goal was for Sweden to be the best in the world in the use of digitalization opportunities. To achieve this goal, the strategy set a number of targets, such as digital literacy, digital security, digital infrastructure, and so on. So far, the country is doing very well translating these targets into effective policy actions. This is what we should learn from them.

Being a Swedish company with Ukrainian roots, Sigma Software knows how to cope with digital transformation and understands the Ukrainian realities well at the same time.

For example, for the city of Lviv we’ve created a “City Dashboard” portal that provides the public with access to 200 different municipal indicators. Among them are 3 major KPIs: Statistics, Quality of life, and Strategy.

Valery shared which Swedish tech solutions and innovations we could apply to the existing Ukrainian projects to make them more transparent and efficient. He presented IST, Scandinavia’s leading supplier of solutions and services for schools (7,000 Schools and 5 million users); Formpipe, the biggest document management solution in the Nordics that has over 5,500 customers across industries worldwide; Kry, a leading European digital healthcare provider; and PM Tool, complex dashboard for portfolio project management, tracking, and control.

Other Swedish companies, such as Ericsson, Beetroot, BookWrap, Cambio Healthcare Systems, CybeMed, and Carmenta also shared their ideas about how they could accelerate Ukraine’s digitalization with the help of Nordic innovations. The participants also discussed the further development of the Diia project and the opportunity for the involvement of Swedish companies in this process. The meeting participants also offered their products in order to enhance the Diia City service.

According to Tobias Thyberg, there are many Swedish companies that are already working or ready to work in Ukraine and can make an important contribution to the development of the country.

There is more to come, so stay tuned.

• #Dev Centers & Teams
• #Turnkey Project Outsourcing