Ukrainian Pavilion at WebSummit: Summary event
The first-ever Ukrainian stand at the world’s biggest tech conference turned out to be a huge success. Almost 40 percent of the Web Summit’s participants visited Ukraine’s pavilion. The presentation of the local tech ecosystem was also overcrowded, which included people from over 20 countries.
Why Ukraine?
Ukraine is experiencing impressive growth as a global technology player, with more than 5,000 IT companies employing over 200,000 IT specialists. Ukraine’s IT services export has been growing by 25% annually on average and currently accounts for over 8% of the country’s total exports and is projected to generate $10 billion by 2025.
- Discover a hidden gem on the global tech ecosystem map
- Get familiar with the top-achievers of Ukrainian digitalization over the past 2 years
- Learn how Ukrainian tech talents can help your business grow
- Meet emerging powerful global IT hub game changers
- Find out about a new upbeaten destination for building business, investments and partnerships
During the event speakers-coorganisers showcased the acievements of the Ukrainian Pavilion:
- Pavlo Kartashov – Ukrainian Startup Fund
The debut of the Ukrainian delegation in Lisbon was a clear success. Our stand met a real sell-out, which exceeded expectations: everyone was interested to see innovations from Eastern Europe. Ukrainian teams have clearly demonstrated the readiness of their products to compete and enter international markets.
- Alexandra Govorukha – Head of International PR в Sigma Software Group
The success of Ukrainian tech companies has two key ingredients: cool product or solution & proper communication. One without the other would have no effect. You need to talk about what you are doing. Too many cool things have sunk into history because they have not been talked about. Some because of modesty, some because of an inability to tell stories around their product. Create stories and don’t be afraid to tell them. Choose the right channels and formats of communication.
The popularity of our pavilion was created by the Ukrainians who invited their foreign friends to our stand, made appointments, simply came up to support their friends and thus attracted enormous attention from everyone passing by, making them stop and see what interesting things were happening there. As a result, there were crowds of people at the Ukraine’s booth all three days of the Web Summit.
- Olesya Malyovanaya – Ukrainian Hub
Most of the post-releases I’ve reviewed suggest that this year’s Web Summit is different, with the quality of communications outweighing quantity. The numbers are impressive: more than 42,000 participants from 128 countries, 748 speakers, and more than 1,500 startups, and we are delighted that Ukraine was represented very well among these figures. My main conclusion – THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS PEOPLE !!! Finding cool people and uniting them in a superb team – we can do everything. And even more. After all, it happened thanks to the people who presented Ukrainian projects and companies, came to the stand, invited visitors, potential partners, and the media, made our Pavilion one of the most visited stands among the countries.
- Yulia Melnyk – European Business Association
We have an IT Committee that was founded 12 years ago and our mission is to make Ukraine a best place to do business. During this time exports of IT services have increased almost 114 times. However, we have many more perspectives to develop. So, welcome to Ukraine
- Olena Bakalo – Co-founder & CEO at iplace Portugal
The main reason why we were here at Web Summit is that Ukrainians have assets to share with people from 128 countries who made the journey to Lisbon this year, connecting, networking, and learning from Web Summit’s wealth of content and experienced attendees. I was thrilled to answer dozens of questions when visitors discovered the path the Ukrainian tech ecosystem evolves: our country builds a strong digital presence not only in a business environment but also in governmental services. Along with our ability to present our achievements at events like WebSummit, I strongly believe that the world will discover more about Ukraine’s hidden gems in the nearest future.
- Dasha Kichuk – CEO Effa, the first world 100% renewable and recyclable toothbrush made of paper. Edda became the first Ukrainian startup that pitched the project at the Web Summit Central Stage!
Effa team got a pretty exciting journey to the WebSummit this year. We have been there for the first time, and we became the first hardware startup picked to the Alpha program and the first Ukrainian startup to pitch at the central stage! Since our main goal was to tell as many people about Effa and to get media coverage – we’ve completed our KPI there 🙂 not mentioning the fact that our website was overloaded within the first week after the Summit.
As to the future, the org committee is thinking to continue this initiative and already making plans for the Web Summit 2022.
Watch the full record of the event
