David Kiziria, Expert and Founding Member of Georgian ICT Cluster
The European Union’s EU4Digital Initiative currently embraces four key programs: EU4Digital Facility, EaPConnect, EU4Digital Cyber, and EU4Digital Broadband. EaPConnect, a €10 million program aims to bring together research and education communities from EU and Eastern partner countries and to reduce the digital divide. The project will extend network infrastructure to scale up scientific exchange across borders, offer new services to enhance international R&E cooperation, strengthen national research and education networks (NRENs) in R&E ecosystems, and build knowledge, skills, and collaborative working through events, training, and other initiatives.
StrategEast has interviewed experts from the EaP countries. Here are the answers from the expert on Georgia.
Does IT education in your country require further improvement?
IT education in Georgia needs a radical transformation to meet the challenges posed by the IV Industrial Revolution and the acceleration of the pandemic.
On the one hand – every year thousands of IT specialists graduate from universities, great attention is paid to the development of IT professional programs. Nevertheless, representatives of the IT industry note the shortage of IT specialists, both in terms of quantity and quality.
The demand for qualified IT specialists is further enhanced by the challenges of the digital transformation accelerated by the pandemic – in “next normal”, IT specialists must be one of the key drivers of economic growth success in the post-pandemic era.
The quality of formal education IT programs is just the tip of the iceberg of problems. One of the important factors is the underdevelopment of the IT ecosystem, the market in Georgia, the monopoly of state providers in this field.
International practice shows:
- The level of stimulation and quality of IT education is greatly influenced by the development of the IT industry in the country, as it is the industry that is the customer and employer of IT education graduates.
- The development of the IT industry directly depends on the opportunities offered by the local market in the first place. Would it be small Estonia or the industry leader – Silicon Valley, in all cases affordable funding and local space to pilot IT products are needed.
In the absence of such an ecosystem, success can be a “point” in nature and contribute to the “drainage of the mind.” Consequently, appropriate systemic transformations are important for the development of IT education. The problem is also the underdevelopment of the non-formal education system in the country, both for the young generation (circles and clubs) and for adults (short-term courses) which would be a wonderful solution for future developments.
Do you think this program can bring tangible results for strengthening IT education in your country?
EaPConnect, which aims to facilitate the internationalization of IT education and research communities will have a significant positive impact if implemented wisely.
Due to the IT and innovation ecosystem in the country, the underdevelopment of the market, and the dominance of state providers in this field, IT activities are mainly focused on: (1) the integration tasks of imported technologies, (2) customization of these systems to local requirements. (3) the replacement of imported systems with local analogs, the success of which is largely ensured by the low price achieved at the expense of functional limitations. Also, (4) outsourcing, which again does not go through narrow technical tasks. All other cases are only spotty in nature and do not actually affect the climate.
Given that Georgia is only a superficial consumer of technological knowledge, the degree of backwardness only progresses, which naturally has a severe impact on the future of our society.
EaPConnect can at least facilitate the development of personal or institutional expertise and contacts in the field of technology through internationalization, which will be an important start.
However, a significant and long-term infarction of this project could have been an aid in the transformation of modern mechanisms in this field.
It would be good in this direction e.g.
- Select a research topic that aligns with both global and local challenges. Enables the development of its results after on-site piloting and subsequent export.
- Encourage PPP mechanisms. This may not be direct funding of projects by the state, but rather the creation of opportunities by it to reduce the monopolies of IT agencies of state agencies, where the commercial products created as a result of R&D will be used.
The existence of such a competitive environment would encourage the activity of non-state commercial and academic providers in the field of R&D and the formation of long-term, stable mechanisms.
Can the community of IT specialists be considered not only a professional association but also an important element of civil society in your country?
Naturally, an IT specialist, like any other professional, considers himself or herself a part of his or her community, a responsible member. IT professionals, at the heart of their work, are at the epicenter of global technological change, seeing and feeling the transformations: opportunities or risks that these new realities create. Based on this expertise, they have the opportunity to play an important role in the digital transformation of their own societies, which does not only involve technology, it involves more in-depth, paradigm shift, changes that encompass all aspects of society.
History shows that the advent of new industrial revolutions causes tectonic upheavals: it gives trained societies a chance to move forward, the unprepared ones are plunged into a whirlpool of socio-political and economic collapses and their backwardness increases.
The challenges of the 4th Industrial Revolution were exacerbated by the new reality created by the pandemic, and in our case, the global challenges are compounded by the local – our post-Soviet legacy (underdeveloped civil, political and economic system, internal conflicts, occupation).
Consolidation of public potential is important to deal with them. The development of the IT industry has been largely due to the openness-based nature of the IT community. The Open Source model, marginal before, is now mainstream today.
The IT community has the potential to become a trigger for change. A good example of this is open-source projects developed by the IT community during the Ukrainian Revolution (public procurement system, blockchain system of state auctions), of which I was a direct and active participant. Based on the open-source approach, several organizations have been merged since the 2020 elections to develop and offer a modern technology-based electoral system to the public. Our platform (open election. Systems) integrates both IT and civil and academic sectors. We think this will be a good example of public activity.
