On 1 March 2013, Yuriy Syvytsky (one of the partners of Softline IT and a member of the Supervisory Board of the Intecracy Group consortium) explained in the pages of Korrespondent, the most popular Ukrainian business weekly, how Ukraine could grow from a small contractor for global IT leaders into a major player on the international market. In Yuriy Syvytsky's opinion, our country should follow the path of Israel. Over the past 20 years, that country has broken through into the ranks of world leaders with far fewer resources than Ukraine.
"In the early 1990s, the IT business, and especially internet technologies, began to develop rapidly around the world. At the same time, Israeli military personnel began to retire — the country's army had always been high-tech. In addition, there was a massive influx of engineering and scientific minds from the former Soviet Union. Combined with an established stock market and the innovativeness of Israelis, this launched the explosive development of Israel's entire high-tech industry. Exports of technologies and licences for IT products from Israel now amount to tens of billions of dollars a year. I stress — billions. Israel, with its population of seven million, consistently ranks third, or even second, in the world for bringing technology start-ups to the stock market. To a large extent, Israel's IT business was created by our former compatriots. And one question keeps going round in my head: what prevents Ukraine, with its 46 million people and its engineering potential, from reaching the same level as tiny Israel?" writes Yuriy Syvytsky. In his view, for Ukraine itself to move to a radically new level, it needs a strong domestic market and strict observance of copyright, first and foremost by the state itself. In the USA, Germany, Israel, Canada and Estonia, the IT industry received a strong boost in the form of government (electronic services) and military orders. In fact, all the largest international IT companies grew up on domestic orders and expanded worldwide with the active support of trade missions at embassies and the financial support of state-stimulated high-tech investment funds.