The first technology conference dedicated to Ukraine’s dynamic IT industry, its talents and achievements - Ukraine Tech Gem was held at Hyatt Regency San Francisco (California, USA), on September 18, 2014.
For the first time Ukraine has presented its products and tech companies, startups, talented engineers, a portfolio of successful cases and the most promising products that have already received worldwide recognition to the US audience.
SPONSORS, PARTNERS, PARTICIPANTS
The conference brought together more than 500 participants from the United States and Ukraine – IT developers, product and service companies, venture capitalists, business angels, venture capital funds, students and Ukrainian diaspora. Leading international and Ukrainian technological and innovation companies - EPAM, Ciklum, Softserve, Sigma, Bionic Hill, Fison, Eleks, Innovecs, Cogniance, Intetics, London Stock Exchange sponsored the conference. More than 40 partner companies and media from Ukraine and the USA supported Ukraine Tech Gem.
PROGRAM
Ukraine Tech Gem program consisted of speeches by IT and venture capital legends of the Silicon Valley (Asset Management Ventures, Hewlett Packard, Venrock, 500 Startups) as well as leading US universities (Berkeley University, Stanford University), discussion panels, exhibitions of the best Ukrainian IT companies and startups.
Sridhar Solur, director of mobile applications and services at Hewlett Packard (“In the cloud and beyond”), CEO and president of EPAM Systems – Arkadiy Dobkin (“Product development in the digital age”), one of the best-known venture capitalists in the world – Pitch Johnson, founder of Asset Management Co. ("Business in a Global World") were the keynote speakers of the conference.
STARTUPS
In a separate section called "Ukraine to the world: ascending startup stars" top 5 success stories were presented of Ukrainian startup companies that have emerged and already work in a global market: Paymentwall online payments service, Depositphotos purchase and sale service of high-quality photos, vector images and videos, Bpm'online - worldwide provider of first class CRM and BPM solutions, Jooble online job search website and the leading provider of productivity tools for enterprise application integration – Invisible CRM.
In addition, Ukraine Tech Gem held a startup competition where young Ukrainian startup companies took part. The jury consisted of US and European VC funds. Petcube, which is developing domestic robots to supervise pets in the absence of the owners has won.
SPECIAL GUEST – RUSLANA LYZHYCHKO
The special guest of Ukraine Tech Gem conference was Ruslana Lyzhychko, a social activist, People's Artist of Ukraine, a winner of Eurovision, a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. A special Media Panel was organized at the conference dedicated to info wars and ways to combat misinformation through technology. Its participants included Ruslana Lyzhychko and journalists from Forbes, The Foreign Initiative and KyivPost.
The final chord of the conference was a closed VIP-buffet for special guests, speakers of the conference, investors and chosen startups.
ORGANIZERS
European Business Association, Happy Farm business accelerator, U.S.–Ukraine Business Council
SPONSORS
EPAM, Ciklum, Softserve, Sigma, Bionic Hill, Fison, Eleks Innovecs,
Cogniance, Intetics, London Stock Exchange
CO-ORGANIZERS
AVentures, IT Arena, IT-BPO Lviv Cluster, Lviv Business School
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Photos: utgem Flickr
Videos: http://bit.ly/utgem-youtube