On January 9th, StrategEast convened its Annual Advisory Board meeting, led by StrategEast President Anatoly Motkin, to reflect on the organization’s achievements and outline strategic goals and steps to be taken in the upcoming year. The meeting brought together esteemed Advisory Board members, including Horton Beebe-Center, Ambassador Clifford Bond, Debra Cagan, Michael Haltzel, David Tkeshelashvili, Mark Pritchard, and Daniel Witt. Joining them was the newly appointed StrategEast CEO, Natalia Petrova.
Anatoly Motkin shared a comprehensive overview of StrategEast’s accomplishments, particularly in fostering the development of the IT industry across Central Asia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the Gulf region. The organization has played a pivotal role in creating IT jobs, advancing skills development, accelerating startups, and advocating for the creation of an enabling environment for the growth of the IT sector. Notably, StrategEast has been instrumental in generating more than 15,000 new IT jobs, providing specialized IT training to over 2,500 students, and contributing to a remarkable growth of over 500 million USD in IT exports in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Furthermore, StrategEast has hosted over 200 expert speakers at both offline and online events, actively participating in 64 major international IT gatherings. The organization has expanded its network by welcoming over 40 new partners for collaborative events and projects.
StrategEast President communicated the future action plan and outlined initiatives to be implemented and steps to be taken to achieve the expected result. With an emphasis on sustainability and outreach, the plan encompasses a range of training activities jointly with leading global corporates, local private sector partners, governments, and public sector counterparts, and a focus on attracting further investments to fuel the region’s technological progress.
