Entrepreneurship in Ukraine: Sigma Drives IT-Eureka! Ukraine Contest

Sigma invites Ukrainian students to take part in the IT-Eureka! Ukraine contest, an ultimate platform for entrepreneurship development and innovations. This year the competition will be held in a format of a hackathon. The registration is open on the IT-Eureka! Ukraine official website until March 31, 2017.

For two years in a row the IT-Eureka! Ukraine contest has been held within the frameworks of the three-year TEMPUS program NEFESIE (National Education Framework for Enhancing IT Students’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship). In 2015 and 2016, over 600 innovative projects and 1,500 students participated in the competition.

Now, when the program has come to its end in Ukraine, the contest won`t be left aside. Sigma Software and Sigma Technology have adopted the initiative to run the event in Ukraine and drive it as its main partners. The Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics became the main hosting partner for the upcoming IT-Eureka competition.

“Together with Sigma Software and leading Ukrainian tech universities, we have been developing the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation ecosystem in Ukraine for over six years. Our target is young IT professionals and students, who are the future of the business and economy development in the country,” says Niklas Malmros, President at Sigma Technology Solutions.

Sigma Technology and Sigma Software work together on a multitude of projects for international customers and understand the significance of Ukrainian nearshore potential. Niklas adds, “The technical competence in this country is on a very high level, and IT industry is growing by 10% every year. Our clients say that cooperation with Ukraine means broad competence and European-minded team. We aim to develop this positive perception even more by contributing to the education development.”

To be accepted for the Hackathon, the ideas and projects should solve existing problems in the education area using IT means as well as be innovative and competitive on the market. Every student team will be supported by mentors—experienced IT professionals, who will provide feedback and help in identifying next steps towards ideas implementation.

The winners will be selected in three stages. Ideas can be submitted until March 31, while their evaluation will last until April 14. The finalists will be invited to take part in the Hackathon, which is planned for April 22-23in Kharkiv, Ukraine. During 24 hours, the best teams will be working on the development of prototypes implementing their ideas, and then will pitch their prototypes to the contest jury including representatives of Ukrainian leading technical universities, IT business, and venture capital funds.

”Sweden experiences a great lack of developers, while the pressure on the market continues to grow. We make this long-term effort to recruit the best IT talents and, thus, strengthen our nearshore premium offer from Ukraine to our customers on the Swedish market,” says Daniel Björkman, Vice President at Sigma Technology Solutions.

“For Sigma Software, as a company that puts much effort in IT education improvement and development of IT community in Ukraine, events like IT-Eureka are very important. During the past years, more than 1,500 students took part in the competition applying with over 600 innovative projects. Many of them were remarkably mature and surprisingly well conceived. Therefore, it would be completely wrong to let this event fade out. We overtook the role of the main driver, and we hope to engage many talented innovators to participate in the contest,” says Valery Krasovsky, CEO at Sigma Software.

For more information, contact Niklas Malmros, niklas.malmros@sigmatechnology.se.