About Ukraine
Basic facts
| Location |
Eastern Europe, bordering the Black Sea, between Poland and Russia |
| Capital |
Kyiv |
| Population |
47.1 million people |
| Main languages |
Ukrainian, Russian |
| Currency |
Hryvnia (UAH) |
| Literacy rate |
98% |
| High school graduates |
87% |
| GDP sources |
18.5% agriculture, 44.5% industry, 37.0% services |
| Inflation |
9.0% (2004)* |
| GDP per head |
US$1,380* |
| GDP growth |
12.1% (2004)* |
| Distance from Kyiv to major Western European capitals |
2 to 2.5 hours |
*Economist Intelligence Unit estimate.
Leading Ukrainian providers have existed for 13 years, the industry is still young. Because the outsourcing sector is small but very competitive with the rest of the Ukrainian IT –industry, not to mention industry outside of IT, in terms of payment, career opportunities, job challenges and social protection, it attracts the best of the best. Another positive impact is that Ukrainian companies are much more flexible when seeking to attract clients. They strive to overtake the leader and to prove themselves.
This industry is sure to continue growing quickly. Ukrainian companies and project managers are quickly gaining experience and many are currently preparing to attain world recognized quality and business process certifications. But the Ukrainians are coming and striving to attain their rightful place in the IT world.
In 2000 the park of computer equipment increased up to 1.130 million computers. Thus, it is possible to consider a degree of computerization and web technology development of Ukraine as sufficient for success of branch of software development. At this time there are few large software development shops in Ukraine. There are more than 20000 offshore software development services companies in Ukraine, most of which have 50 to 300 programmers partly or fully foreign owned or 100% Ukrainian owned, but which do most of their work for foreign clients as contractors. These organizations often have well-developed management structures and (in the case of contract programming) sales and marketing organizations worldwide.
According to the employment agency ANCOR, the biggest demand for IT professionals in Ukraine is for experienced programmers in C/C++, Java programming and consulting, database development, administration and support, web sphere, versant software, internet security, CAD systems, Windows Networking, MS Visual Studio, Advansed server, gps development, Web-developers, Database specialists and Unix-administrators. Specific experience is being requested in: WebLogic, WebSphere, Tuxedo, SilverStream, ATG/Dynamo, NSMQ, EJB, CORBA, OAS, Jserv, JRUN, and ColdFusion.
Availability of resources
Ukraine has a substantial reserve of software development resources waiting to be tapped. Its institutes of higher learning and universities continue to turn out thousands of graduates in IT, IT-related or engineering fields.
Worldwide, as the demand for programmers has continued to grow faster than the available supply of qualified specialists, companies have been looking for new sources of labor to fill the gap. As the problem has become even more acute in the past few years, Ukraine has stepped onto the world stage as a source of highly skilled, low cost programmers. According to Emmy Gengler, the CEO of Softjourn, Inc., the offshore software development market in Ukraine was worth between 18 million and 45 million USD in 2000.
Given the depth of IT resources available in the market, smaller firms can ramp up quickly by tapping the available pool of talent.
Technical excellence
Ukrainian programmers possess all the needed up-to-date technical skills, as well as those needed for legacy migration. Within Ukraine all the latest worldwide technical literature is available, both in English and in localized versions. Over recent years Ukrainian student and school programming teams have consistently beaten their competitors from all over the world in closely watched international competitions. Local offshore programming providers understand the meaning of keeping abreast of all developments in the field and take the requisite preparatory steps: they organize specialized technical libraries and invite leading specialist to give special lectures on the latest trends and information technologies. In addition, there are a number of certification centers from Sun, Microsoft, Novell as a well as independent authorities.
R&D focus
Ukrainian companies have a strong advantage in R&D. By R&D it means not only scientific research, but also all the software development that requires creativity and strong skills in adjacent domains.
Strong fundamental education
Ukraine has a well-educated and skilled labor force, with a 98 percent literacy rate, rate compared to 52% for India. Ukrainian educational institutions produce well-qualified graduates, especially in the areas of fundamental technology sciences.
According to Microsoft statistics more than 1000 have passed the MCE exams thus far in Ukraine. In Ukraine technical documentation was available only in English; this has resulted in technologists having a high level of English comprehension skills.
Ukrainian scientists have achieved world-class results in such fields as mathematics, physics, computer sciences, engineering, biology, electric welding, new materials and space sciences. The basis of the country's scientific and technological development is in the following branches of Ukrainian economy: aircraft industry, shipbuilding, missile and tank engineering (Ukraine is among the five countries in the world with a closed cycle of tank manufacturing), bio-technologies, radio-electronics, low temperatures physics, nuclear physics, communication and telecommunication.
The traditions of mathematical schools are also very strong in Ukraine. Kyiv has always been the leading center of computing technologies the second computer in the world was created in Kyiv as well as on of the largest schools of cybernetics – the Glushkov Research Institute. Among economic priorities there are also the development of processing and food industries, heavy machinery and industrial equipment production, machine tools, large electrical transformers, ships, locomotives, rail cars, passenger (ANTONOV-140) and cargo aircraft (ANTONOV-70, ANTONOV-225), agricultural machinery as well as textiles.
Universities
National Polytechnic University of Ukraine
The most acknowledged Universities in Ukraine are: National Polytechnic University of Ukraine (Kyiv Polytechnic Institute), National Taras Shevchenko University, National Aviation University.
National Polytechnic University of Ukraine (Kyiv Polytechnic Institute) has the Experimental Automation department, the aim of which is to prepare specialists in programming, electronic and computer techniques for use in scientific research systems. This includes techniques, which are used in the automation of experiments in aerodynamics, durability, and simulation areas. Students take a wide variety of classes from computer simulation and modeling, computer graphics, and digital signal processing to computer aided design.
One area where intensive research is done is in the measurement of voltage. Voltage has more than 100 basic standards of measurement and every country has different standards. Currently, the department is working with Ukraine and Germany on developing new standards. In Ukraine, new measuring standards must be certified by DerzhStandardt Ministry; in Germany it is the Felicash BundesStandarts, which certifies standards.
Other areas of research undertaken include: aircraft and space techniques, the operation and controlling of technological processes, ecological monitoring, information protection, synthesis and analysis of sounds and picture tests of radio electronic equipment.
Cooperation with several multi-national companies has benefited the department by enabling it to establish study labs to train specialists in Digital Signal Processing (DSP), microprocessor and micro-controller equipment. These funds are just a part of Motorola's continued involvement with KPI. Previously, in 1995 Motorola established a Laboratory for Digital Signal Processing at KPI.
Siemens Nixdorf and Rhodes Schwarz (Germany) have also provided new equipment to supply laboratories for the students. This type of cooperation has aided in not only providing learning environments for the students, but also in providing internships and later on full-time employment.
Upon graduation, students from the experimental automation department have taken research positions with the Ukrainian Academy of Science, with a number of Industrial Associations, and Antonov Aviation Scientific Technical Complex. Many of the students also go to work with private entities, both multi-national and Ukrainian like Motorola, Siemens, IBM, Compaq, Ulys Systems, ProminvestBank, and Kvazar Micro.
The perpetual growth in demand to study within this department says a lot about the future of the department and Ukraine. With its very active leadership, company involvement and internship programs, the experimental automation department can expect to have high demand for its graduates for many years to come.
National Taras Shevchenko University
One of the most well-known departments of the National Taras Shevchenko University is the department of Complex Systems Modeling. The main focus of the department is on defining and developing new theories and algorithms for the analytical presentation of dynamic objects. This means defining control points and input signals to manage the behavior of a dynamic object in an optimal manner. Currently the research of the Complex Systems Modeling department is focused around creating new algorithms for data compression. Another area of research focus is that of image recognition. Both professors and students alike are currently developing solutions in the following areas:
Computer Image Creation, which involves taking a picture of a person and then animating it.
The development of algorithms for storing large, complex, and multiple images economically.
Video image recognition of people and any other determined objects by classifications.
Synthesizing the Ukrainian Language (Software which enables the voice synthesizing of the Ukrainian language). Currently programs exist to synthesize email written in English or text messages (Short message service – SMS) sent in English, or even Russian, however, no program yet exists to synthesize the Ukrainian language.
Multi-national companies such as Hewlett Packard and Dell are also providing equipment enabling the institutes to establish training labs. Many international companies contribute in Ukrainian educational system in purpose to grow up the specialists for them.
Experience with complicated projects
Past achievements of Ukraine in space and military production have left solid traditions of working through complicated projects that are IT dependent. Higher education remains strong in the areas of mathematics and theoretical physics, which rely heavily on IT-technologies. Recently the international IT-majors have begun to realize the opportunity posed by opening full affiliates in Ukraine and engaging them in their global and complicated projects.
European culture
Geography and centuries long tradition place Ukraine firmly in Europe. Today's young and middle age managers and specialists who work in information technology companies have the same or higher levels of education, English language skills and motivation as their European colleagues.
Business forms
Possible business forms for foreign investors may be: joint-stock companies, limited-liability companies, joint ventures or engaging in joint activity without establishment of a legal entity. Joint-stock companies and limited-liability companies are the most popular form of Ukrainian business organization.
Great potential
Ukrainian offshore software outsourcing industry has great potential for integration in the worldwide IT industry. Traditionally, Ukrainian companies (with a focus on product development, not outsourcing) have strong positions in very few domains like antivirus software, OCR and scientific software. The local IT-industry serving domestic clients has dominant positions in systems integration, accounting software and Web development, where it overshadows the offices of international companies in Ukraine. These local providers are also beginning to expand into the international market.
The majority of software development companies today are located in the capital city of Kyiv in GMT+2 time zone. This time difference allows European contries to work almost at the same time with Ukrainian. For American and Canadian time difference is 7 hours therefore staggered work times allow for overlap and communications between the two locations and for the possibility to hand off work at then end of the day. In a bug-fixing mode, this allows for errors fixed during the day in Kyiv and unit tested to be handed off to QA in CA for review during their workday.
Business Travel
The capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, is approximately 2 to 2.5 hours from the major Western European capitals with flights arriving almost daily. For Western European companies this means a near shore relationship with software developers in Ukraine. For the US, Ukraine is 7-10 hours ahead of the US, 6:00pm in Kyiv means 8:00 am in CA, USA. It gives good ability for clients or potential software development customers to visit Ukraine in purposes of discussing potential projects and during the project software development lifecycle as needed. Three important steps were made to easier this process. Invitation letters to obtain visas have been done away with for most countries. As of the second quarter of 2001, international visitors to Ukraine are no longer required to register when staying in Ukraine for more than three days.