Ukrainian politicians and tech people seem to barely understand each other, newly elected President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on May 23 during a 20-minute speech at Kyiv’s annual tech conference iForum.
“Innovation and politics are two different worlds in Ukraine,” the president said.
Local politicians know nothing about information technologies and talk about them only when they need to create a positive image of themselves, Zelenskiy said.
“The vocabulary of a Ukrainian politician consists of several words that they use when talking about technologies: innovation, digitalization, Hyperloop, and Elon Musk,” he continued.
Zelenskiy said he doesn’t want to be like these politicians: “Hence, I do not want to promise you the moon and the stars, that we will build factories of electric vehicle producer Tesla and make Elon Musk an innovation minister.”
“I personally can’t change anything,” the president said. “Digitization, innovation — all of this can only be done together. You are much smarter than me,” he told a packed hall of tech entrepreneurs, programmers, and IT-related specialists.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy talks with the audience at iForum, one of the biggest annual tech conferences in Ukraine, in Kyiv on May 23, 2019. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
Ukraine catching up
Flipping a presentation slide while on stage, Zelenskiy showed a portrait of German inventor Johannes Gutenberg, who created the first printing press in the 15th century.
“This dude has ripped apart that epoch,” the president said, pointing to the portrait.
“But today such inventions are being created several times a year,” he said, adding that it is “in our hands now” to contribute to the world’s tech development and “create the future.”
He admits, however, that it’s difficult for Ukrainians to “talk about the future, having no present,” with poor quality medicine and a corrupt energy market.
“Ukraine has many f**k-ups,” Zelenskiy said.
But all the same, he believes that Ukraine can use this to its own advantage — by skipping some stages in its development and adopting the world’s best high-tech solutions. For example, he said, some African countries didn’t have fixed-line phones in the past, but now they have started using mobile phones.
Following suit, Ukraine should reject its weak traditional banking sector and switch to online banking straight away, stop using expensive gas and head toward affordable renewable energy sources, and use drones where infrastructure is poor.
“What do we lack to do that?” Zelenskiy asked. “Without such innovations, there won’t be competition, no jobs, no production, and hence no taxes.”
“It’s our politicians who hinder these processes,” he said.
Zelenskiy believes his task as Ukraine’s new president is to create a favorable environment for tech people to stay in the country.
“It’s impossible to have innovations here if people leave Ukraine. That’s why I am at iForum,” he added.
Innovations to defend Ukrainians
Zelenskiy thinks that by implementing innovations, Ukrainians and local businesses will be able to defend themselves from the old corrupt system.
“What exactly are these innovations (in the context of) our f**ing political sphere?” he asked.
“It’s when all the documents are stored online and law enforcement can’t illegally blackmail you. It’s when raiders can’t rewrite ownership in a register because the register is on the blockchain.”
Making use of e-government
Referring to data collected by the U.K. government, Zelenskiy claimed that using a mobile application for requesting governmental services is “30 times cheaper than talking to a bureaucrat.”
However, Ukraine is lagging behind its closest neighbors in the development of e-government: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Moldova, Estonia and “the aggressor” Russia are all ahead. Meanwhile, only Russia, Belarus and Estonia have a higher human capital index, according to United Nations statistics which Zelenskiy cited.
“So it’s not about people, it’s about the system,” he said, adding that he wants to change that. “You can think I am a naïve dreamer, but I do want to create ‘country in the smartphone,'” an app through which one can get information about the government, communicate with officials, and be involved in government management.
“It’s cool that while going to work — apart from reading the news and checking the weather forecast — you will be able to see what draft laws are being submitted and offer amendments to them.”
President Zelenskiy walks off the stage after his speech at iForum on May 23, 2019. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
The Kyiv Post’s technology coverage is sponsored by Ciklum and NIX Solutions. The content is independent of the donors.
