The IT industry has become a significant factor in the development of the economies of Eurasian countries. However, until now, local IT companies are mainly limited to outsourcing and outstaffing. Can Eurasian IT move from a service model to a product model? This was discussed at the StrategEast.Live panel discussion “Startup acceleration in Eurasia”.
‘I can not say that there are many startups in Moldova. We have only one company that has reached a capitalization of $2 billion in the U.S. market,’ says Ana Chirita, Executive Director of ICT Association of Moldova – ATIC, Project Director at Tekwill, Moldova.
“We see that for further development it is necessary to train entrepreneurs and we are doing this. We now have a lot of programs for entrepreneurs and we see that it is necessary to train more and more young people. We no longer limit training for only people over 18 years old. We teach technical skills to kids from the age of 4-5. But we also teach entrepreneurship from a very early age. We teach creativity first of all – we call it “skills of the future”. This year alone, we are launching three new programs, including training in emotional intelligence. And of course, our goal for these people is to be able to work for the global market, so we train, including through the programs of international companies such as Cisco and Oracle.”
“The Azerbaijani state has set a task to transfer oil capital to human capital,” says Vusal Karimli, Managing Director at SUP VC, Azerbaijan. “And we consider the creation of startup ecosystems as a part of the solution to this global problem. First of all, universities and other stakeholders are working to create such an ecosystem. Each of the universities has incubators that teach entrepreneurship, create “sister companies” that do incubation and teach startups how to work on a global scale.”
Pavel Koktyshev, Deputy Chairman of the Board, Zerde National Infocommunication Holding, Kazakhstan believes that in recent years Kazakhstan has made significant steps to create an ecosystem for IT projects development, created both technical and educational, as well as legal infrastructure. Kazakhstan has perfectly prepared the investment environment in recent years and is already reaping the rewards today. Kazakh companies are getting more and more investments from international funds. For example, Kaspi Bank created a unique digital ecosystem and held an IPO this year on the London Stock Exchange with a valuation of $11 billion and today it enters the Uzbek market with a variety of fintech services.
Answering the question by the panel moderator Chris Burry, Co-CEO at the US Market Access Center, on what steps are being taken by the countries of Eurasia to create an “international mindset”, Ana Chirita said that special “start-up classes” and hackathons are being held in Moldova, during which teams of people with completely different skills who, working together, are able to develop just such a mindset and see the global picture.
“We understand that to create an international mindset, first of all, you need to create the right environment for people, an environment in which they can think globally,” adds Vusal Karimli. “And one of the problems with startups is that they simply do not have enough confidence to think globally. But with the creation of the ecosystem, this confidence among entrepreneurs is certainly growing. Interestingly, the pandemic has accelerated this process – our young entrepreneurs have begun to work online, geographic and physical limitations have disappeared, “place” has ceased to be important, and this has helped to develop a global mindset.”
“We in Kazakhstan are already there, we already have a lot of people with the international mindset,” sums up Pavel Koktyshev. “Our ecosystem has already been created and our current goal is further development, the entry of Kazakh companies to the global markets and involvement of more and more people in our ecosystem innovation. Our successful entrepreneurs, who have already completed successful exits, do not stop there, but create new startups and become, in the best traditions of Silicon Valley, “serial entrepreneurs”.
The panel discussion “Startup acceleration in Eurasia” was held online on March 17th, 2021, as a part of StrategEast.Live – a series of online panel discussions launched by StrategEast to continue the conversation on how technology can lead to an overall transformation in Eurasia. During these panels, the esteemed guests put forward ideas that facilitate the further development of a knowledge-driven economy in the region.
