International cooperation increases entrepreneurship and business innovations in Ukraine

The Tempus project promotes IT innovation and entrepreneurship in Ukraine. The list of the program’s partners includes Linnaeus University, Sigma, IKEA, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Dublin City University (Ireland), Oxford Brookes University (UK), Pedro Nunes Institute (Portugal) and five Ukrainian universities.

The project “National Education Framework for Enhancing IT Students’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship” (NEFESIE) aims to establish sustainable cooperation between academic IT programs, research expertise and business innovation for Ukraine. The program started in October 2012 and will end in October 2015. European Commission allocated €1 million to the project. The NEFESIE program is coordinated by the Linnaeus University (Växjö, Sweden). Coordination in Ukraine is managed by Kharkiv National University of Radioelectronics.

“The main objective of the project is to ensure the synergy between universities, research institutions and business. To achieve the goal we’ve created the knowledge triangle education-research-innovation, emphasizing a student-centered structure, based on innovation and entrepreneurship,” says Arianit Kurti, Project Coordinator and Associate Professor of Media Technology at Linnaeus University.

At the current phase of the program, groups of the students from Linnaeus University (Sweden) and Kharkiv National University of Radioelectronics (Ukraine) performed their joint project with IKEA AB (Sweden), which lasted till May, 2014. Students were involved in IKEA AB projects’ monitoring dashboard development – the Swedish side was responsible for KPI gathering, while Ukrainian team created the prototype of the backend and user interface of the future system. Sigma provided mentor’s help for the students both in Sweden and in Ukraine. The students will present their ideas and innovations for the entrepreneurship promotion at the final competition, which will be held in Ukraine in May, 2015. 

“Sigma’s experts collaborated on this project mentoring students and helping them to establish the efficient working and development processes,” says Niklas Malmros, President at Sigma Technology Solutions. “We see this project as a good opportunity to expand further our partnership with Swedish and Ukrainian universities and IT business.”

“The Tempus project promotes multilateral partnership between higher education institutions and the Partner Countries. The cooperation is beneficial for all the sides involved: students gain their first professional experience, universities enhance the quality of graduates, and IT companies get a chance to meet talented students,” says Valery Krasovsky, Sigma Ukraine's COO. “Innovations in education and development of cooperation with the EU partners are especially important for Ukraine, recovering after the economic and political crisis.”

“Establishing strong educational base and stimulating the business involvement in the students’ innovations, these are the things the Tempus project is about,” says Dan Olofsson, Founder and Owner of the Sigma Group. “This year is not the easiest one for Ukraine. We are happy to have the opportunity to develop our relationships with Ukraine, showing the example of the benefits the continued integration with Europe can bring. This is a step to build a shared future with Ukraine.”