Day 3 at Ukraine House Davos focused on Ukraine’s robust tech innovation and investment opportunities – with Ukraine’s strong international partnerships also being front and center, demonstrated by a personal visit to the House by President Zelenskyy.
Although pretty much every panel at the House this week has touched on Ukraine’s extraordinary investment potential, today was entirely focused on this critical subject.
Before the first panel kicked off, the audience witnessed the unique signing of a governance digital tech agreement between German government representatives, such as Dr. Markus Richter, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Manuel Kilian, Managing Director, Global Government Technology Centre Berlin, and the Ukraine government represented by Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for Innovation, Education, Science and Technology — Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov on video link from Kyiv.
This was a real signal of intent and vote of confidence in the Ukrainian government’s ability to effect digital transformation – as Richter noted, when he last visited the country, he could “really experience what it means when governments really drive transformation in challenging times”.
And then we had the first panel, ‘Shaping the Future of GovTech: Launch of the Global GovTech Board and the Power of Global Collaboration’, moderated by Zoya Lytvyn, Head GGTC Kyiv Centre which heard further insights on Ukrainian and European digital transformation projects from speakers Valeriya Ionan, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine by the video link from Kyiv, as well as Eva Maydell, European Parliament, Lars Zimmerman, Co-Founder and Member of the Board, GovTech Campus Deutschland, Mark Boris Andrijanic, Vice President, Kumo.AI, and Victor Liakh, President, East Europe Foundation.
Before the first afternoon panel, a standing room only audience was treated to a Q&A between Tymofiy Mylovanov, President, Kyiv School of Economics, and Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yulia Svyrydenko. In her remarks, Svyrydenko spoke proudly about the progress of privatization programs in Ukraine, declaring “Ukraine is the place for the private sector… if we want to keep fighting to win we need a good resilient economy”.
The first afternoon panel, ‘Investing in Ukraine’s Economic Resilience Today and Creating Foundations for Growth, Recovery and Reconstruction’ provided a compelling argument for why the time was now to invest in the country.
The panel was moderated by Mylovanov and heard insights from Oleksiy Sobolev, First Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine, Pierre Heilbronn, Special Envoy of the President of France for Ukraine’s Relief and Reconstruction, Ambassador Davide La Cecilia, Special Envoy for Reconstruction in Ukraine (Italy), Dmytro Boroday, Partner, Horizon Capital, and Oksana Strashna, Director, SME Direct Investments Program, UMAEF.
Sobolev called on investors to “invest in the rail sector of Ukraine, in manufacturing, in all of these sectors”. The audience heard first-hand about the scale of private sector achievement from private equity to SMEs.
It was especially buoyed by an impressive presentation by Boroday about Horizon Capital’s $1.5bn telecoms “deal of the decade”. He declared that at Horizon, “We want to show the world that Ukraine is open for business, Ukraine is open for investment. I think this message will get out more strongly and we will get more deals”.
The final afternoon panel continued the investor confidence theme and explored the issue of war insurance to encourage greater investment – ‘Insurance Programs Accelerating New Investments and Supporting Ukraine’s Economic Recovery’, in cooperation with Marsh McLennan.
The panel was moderated by Bronwen Maddox, Director and Chief Executive Chatham House, and heard insights from Oleksiy Sobolev, First Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine, John Doyle, CEO, Marsh McLennan, Bernard Mensah, President of International, Bank of America, Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commissioner for Economy and Productivity; Implementation and Simplification, and Ivan Gonzalez, CEO, Corporate Solutions, Swiss Re.
Marsh McLennan in particular were praised by the panelists for the work they had already done to encourage the right conditions for insurance in Ukraine and Doyle struck a note of upbeat optimism – “multinational insurers will want to come in … but they’re going to want a healthy regulatory framework that can underpin risk-taking.”
Ukraine House Davos is co-organized by UMAEF, Victor Pinchuk Foundation, and Horizon Capital and led by Executive Director Ulyana Khromyak.
The Ukraine House Davos Organizing Committee is comprised of: Jaroslawa Johnson, President and CEO, UMAEF; Svitlana Grytsenko, Member of the Board, Victor Pinchuk Foundation; and Lenna Koszarny, Founding Partner and CEO, Horizon Capital.
Stay tuned as we continue to explore, connect and shape a brighter global future together.
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