On the third day, during the large-scale IT Arena conference, many meetups were organized, where participants had the opportunity to join in on what they were interested in and concerned about the most.

Maksym Bastion, Head of Board at Odesa IT Family, joined the event by expressing his thoughts and experience during the panel discussion “Practical aspects of organizational strategy implementation and vectors of international cooperation”. Maksym emphasized the importance of uniting for common goals, and spoke about cooperation with IT companies, IT professionals, education representatives, and government officials.

The event was organized for networking purposes to introduce EU and Ukrainian technology clusters, facilitate the exchange of experiences, and learn more about strategic planning to help establish meaningful connections based on strategy. Participants had the opportunity to create important contacts in the technology industry and consolidate them through Memoranda of Understanding. Kateryna Solovey, CEO at Odesa IT Family, took part in the networking event, representing our organization. This meeting yielded significant results, as we have already agreed to sign a memorandum with the Latvian IT Cluster and established a connection with the Slovak Alliance for Innovative Economy (SAPIE).

The organizers, Lviv IT Cluster, within the framework of the EU4Business: SME Revival, Competitiveness and Internationalization international cooperation program, raised the important issue that the Ukrainian IT sector has gained a strong reputation for quality project implementation, creative professionals and the growing number of unicorns, and that foreign companies are not always aware of how often they encounter the results of the work of Ukrainian technical experts. Therefore, at the event, we had the opportunity not only to share our mutual experience, but also to rethink how we can combine different interests and implement a joint plan to promote Ukraine’s inclusion in EU value chains.