On April 13 the panel “The role of digital economy in Ukraine’s reconstruction” took place at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC.
The panel was organized as part of the Atlantic Council’s IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings event series that convenes Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors from around the world to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the global economy in 2023.
The opening remarks were made by Ambassador John E. Herbst, the director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center.
Participants of the panel embraced Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Alex Bornyakov of Ukraine alongside CEO of Stellar Development Foundation Denelle Dixon, President of StrategEast Anatoly Motkin, and Deputy Assistant Administrator at USAID Mark Simakovsky to better understand the role of technology in Ukraine’s rebuilding efforts since Russia’s invasion.
In his speech, Mr. Motkin outlined the importance of digital resilience: “The Ukrainian IT ecosystem consists of three components: e-government, outsourcing and start-ups. And it was the outsourcing industry that suffered the most from Russian aggression, when global customers’ confidence in the deleveraging from Ukraine decreased to some extent. And it is important that the state supported industry, acting as its global advocate, demonstrating that Ukrainian IT companies are still reliable partners.”
Speaking about the role of Ukrainian IT, Mr. Motkin emphasized: “Digital infrastructure is much more resilient to Russian missile attacks than conventional infrastructure. international donors to the digital infrastructure of Ukraine”.
In addition, Mr. Motkin proposed by analogy with the Ukrainian Recovery Conference held in Lugano, to hold a separate Ukrainian Digital Recovery Conference. According to President of StrategEast, it is obvious that Ukraine will become one of the great centers of innovation after the end of war. But this work should be started now, and such a conference is needed to coordinate the efforts of all stakeholders.
The video recording of the event is available here.
