Despite rocket-sirens and destroyed buildings, the IT sector in Ukraine is standing strong — even growing — 6 months into Russia’s invasion.
“I can hear sirens, there’s a rocket strike in the vicinity… well, anyways….” That interruption has become a daily norm for Alex Bornyakov, the deputy minister of digital transformation for IT development in Ukraine.
Located in the country’s capital city, Kyiv, this is just another day in the office for Bornyakov. When he hears a siren now, he opens an app on his phone that tracks information about the strikes and warnings. Although it has been a little while since a rocket strike hit Kyiv, the sirens warn that it could come again at any time — and they don’t let up. Hearing them has become so common, happening sometimes a couple of times a day, he says, that he rarely feels the need to run to shelter anymore. He keeps working — just like he and so many others in the IT and tech sector have since the day the war started.
“If you concentrate on work, you don’t usually feel terrible, but of course, it’s upsetting. I think we as Ukrainians are all trying to do our best. I’m working in this field and someone else is defending the zero line on the frontlines and someone else is volunteering,” he said. “We’re all doing our job to help the country go through it. This is my role, and I can’t just abandon it. I feel responsible. It keeps me motivated.”
As the deputy minister of digital transformation for Ukraine, a major part of Bornyakov’s day-to-day work is supporting technology initiatives and keeping the country’s IT and technology sector strong — even during the war. His office also helps Ukrainian citizens maintain access to technology to do their jobs and generate business so they can continue paying taxes to support the army.
Acting as an anchor for the country’s IT industry, the ministry of digital transformation (MDT) has been working on several initiatives to support the sector, including lowering taxes for IT companies and working to ensure technology infrastructure remains intact to strengthen civilian and government communications.
Most recently, the MDT launched a free nationwide program to help Ukrainian citizens enter the IT workforce. The aim is twofold: To solve the country’s personnel shortage in IT and “give people who lost their jobs due to the war the opportunity to find a new and promising field,” Mykhailo Fedorov, deputy prime minister of digital transformation for Ukraine, said in a statement.
Bornyakov said that as a supplement to the effort, he and his team are working to launch startup accelerators and incubators. He added that some may focus on advancing military technologies as well. There will also be private venture funds launched to assist financially.
The MDT’s efforts have proven vital in strengthening the country’s technological defenses amidst the less visible side of the war with Russia: cyberwar. An April 2022 report from Microsoft revealed that Russian cyberattacks on Ukraine have been carried out by “Russian nation-state cyber actors conducting intrusions in concert with kinetic military action.”
Microsoft’s overview of the attacks also revealed that “more than 40% of the destructive attacks were aimed at organizations in critical infrastructure sectors that could have negative second-order effects on the government, military, economy and people,” and additionally, “Thirty-two percent of destructive incidents affected Ukrainian government organizations at the national, regional and city levels.”
The IT sector in Ukraine generates 4% of the country’s GDP. A 2021 report from the country’s IT Association says the industry employs about 300,000 professionals and around 5,000 IT companies in its labor market. The sector has reportedly continued to grow by about 25-50% per year.
The report, which was published before Russia’s invasion, quotes Konstantin Vasyuk, executive director of the country’s IT Association, as saying, “Over the past 25 years, the Ukrainian IT sector has made a quantum leap forward. Starting almost from scratch, it has turned into a highly intelligent industry … For the first time in its history, the IT industry is no longer a niche sector, instead, it is becoming fashionable almost everywhere.”
Now entering its sixth month of warfare, Ukraine has seen several industries upended, companies halted, thousands of lives taken [subscription required] and thousands more injured.
