Empowering business and society for a better future: Insights from the 9th Sweden-Ukraine Business Forum: Tech for Good

Just a few days after COP26, influential business leaders, government representatives, and domain experts from Sweden and Ukraine gathered together in Stockholm to discuss today’s technologies and innovative practices that support sustainable development within the framework of the 17 global UN goals for 2030.

Sweden and Ukraine have had a close tech exchange for many years. The Sweden-Ukraine Business Forum is one of the initiatives that drives the cooperation between two countries further. It aims to create opportunities for doing business together and exchanging experience. On November 18th, government representatives, leaders of mature tech companies and startups gathered in Stockholm to talk about new forms of cooperation and technical solutions in terms of sustainability, education, health, diversity, inclusion and global prosperity.

“Every single Ukrainian tech entrepreneur, every single Swedish tech entrepreneur who’s doing business in Ukraine is very engaged in issues like environmental sustainability, gender equality, women in tech. One simply can’t disregard Ukraine’s growing businesses in tech today,” says Tobias Thyberg, Ambassador Extraordinary, and Plenipotentiary of Sweden to Ukraine.

“We created Sigma Software almost 20 years ago as a startup. In 2006 we met our Swedish friends from Sigma Group. And those were the times of the M&A boom in the Ukrainian market. But for us it was not an acquisition in the classical meaning. It was the start of a great partnership. Since then we’ve learned a lot from our Swedish colleagues: we were inspired by their principles and traditions, by how they build businesses, by how they take care of people and their country. And I’m proud that we’ve applied a lot from this culture and behaviour in our company in Ukraine,” says Valery Krasovsky, CEO and co-founder of Sigma Software Group.

The goal of the 9th Sweden-Ukraine Business Forum was to find out how purpose-driven innovations are changing the world for the better. Artem Petrenko, Managing Director at Sigma Sweden Software AB is convinced that Sweden, as a world leading powerhouse of innovation, sustainability, and equality, was the perfect place to talk about it. “We are proud and honored to have co-organized an event of such scale. Being a Swedish-Ukrainian company we clearly see a huge demand for events like this one, we possess the unique opportunity to be able to combine the best of two markets in order to develop a truly purpose-driven organization and share this knowledge among our tech and business communities.”

Government services are on the verge of evolution

The event started with a presentation of Swedish tech products which revolutionized the process of digital transformation of government services. The case studies of their companies were shared by Erik Lindgren, Director of customer engagement, Public sector Sweden at Formpipe, Sara Corneliusson, COO at Admentum, Johan Liljelund, Executive Vice President and CTO at DanAds, and Peder Stahle, Chief Product Officer at Kry Livi.

Alex Bornyakov, the Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine on IT industry development and a Head of the Diia City project gave his feedback to the presenters and shared a story about the huge success of digitizing documents and public services in Ukraine over the past 2 years.

“It all started with an ambitious mission that we'd defined for ourselves — to build the most convenient state in the world. To achieve this, we have set four specific goals that we work on every day. We have already had great success. In particular, we launched e-ID in the Diia mobile application, which are full analogs of physical documents. Also we created one of the world's fastest online business services. To stimulate the development of an IT business, we are launching the Diia City project. This is a special legal framework that will accelerate the development of the IT industry from the current 20-30% to 50% per year,” says Mr. Bornyakov.

Moa Persdotter, Program Administrator within gender equality, sustainability and AI at Sweden’s State Innovation Agency Vinnova shared how they help connect companies, researchers, the public sector and people in general. Moa shared how they identify the need for innovation in different areas of Swedish society and fund the best solutions.

When business meets purpose

At the Innovating for society panel, the speakers discussed ways businesses can create additional value for society by driving sustainable projects.

Per Stigenberg, CTO at Tre, Sebastian Tolstoy, Head of Eastern Europe & Central Asia at Ericsson, Elsa Bernadotte, Co-founder and COO at Karma, Karin Ebbinghaus, CEO at Elonroad, Jesper Kjellerås, CEO and Founder at Impact Hub Stockholm, emphasized that building businesses with global purpose enhances the reputation and eventually profits of companies. The panel was moderated by Glen Hodgson, CEO at Free Trade Europa.

Culture shift

At the Inclusion and equality in tech panel were: Niclas Holmberg, Managing Director, Listings Sweden at NASDAQ, Claudia Wagner, Co-founder at Ubooker, Patricia Bonaert, EnlightenR at MixR, Emelie Meurk Demerud, CEO & Founder at Hedylity Technology & Founder at Deb (Diverse Executive Boards), and Moa Persdotter. They shared best practices for women in tech empowerment projects, raising diversity in their organisations and talked about how it helps their businesses become more successful. The panel was moderated by Yulia Stark, President of the European Women’s Association.

Startup Pitch Session

10 startups preselected by Antler, Nasdaq, Invest Stockholm, Sigma Software Labs, the Ukrainian Startup Fund and Founder Institute pitched their products to investors.

Anna Gissler, CEO at Invest Stockholm and Mehkar Sheikh, Director at Founder Institute Sweden explained how Stockholm became one of Top 3 startup capitals of Europe and why it now plays a pivotal role in the growth of socially impactful startups.

Closing remarks and final thoughts

Carl Vikingsson, President and CEO at Sigma Technology Group and Honorary Consul for Ukraine in West and South Sweden and Arvid Joelsson, Head of Operations Nordics at Beetroot, closed the Forum with their short, but inspiring speeches.

“I have met Ukrainian entrepreneurs who are transforming our lives for the better, using technologies and design thinking. For example, I was incredibly excited to get familiar with the newest Ukraine’s ‘State in a Smartphone’ — Diia Сity app, which is already deployed across the country. They have become a good role model for the remaining part of Europe, not only by what they say, but also by what they do. I’m happy to be witnessing the journey that Ukraine has been making to become one of the biggest modern IT-workshops in the world. This Forum proved once again the Ukrainian tech potential and strategic cooperation of Sweden and Ukraine is an investment that will definitely pay off.” says Mr. Vikingsson.

The Forum was organized by the Embassy of Sweden in Ukraine and Sigma Software Group. The Ukrainian Embassy in Sweden, Ericsson Ukraine, Beetroot, Free Trade Europe, Invest Stockholm, Founder Institute and Sigma Technology supported the event as partners.