Recently, on the initiative of the Odesa Regional State (Military) Administration, the Regional Development Agency, with the support of the Swiss-Ukrainian DECIDE project and other partners, the first meeting of a focus group from the IT industry, which offered its ideas, was held.

Issues that were proposed on the agenda:

• Organization of the planning process of restoration and development of Odesa region.
• Ways and forms of involving stakeholders in the planning process.
• Issues and challenges faced by stakeholders.
• Ideas and proposals that stakeholders consider important to take into account in strategic planning and others.

Odesa IT Family took an active part in the discussion. We thank Vlad Shimov (Capgemini Engineering), Iryna Dyatlenko (Luxoft), Vadym Drumov (Hillel), Svitlana Hryhorivna (Polytechnic), Kateryna Solovei (Odesa IT Family), Thomas Silesien (Akkerman Solutions), Alina (Akkerman Solutions), Igor Muterko ( Netpeak group) and Oleksiy Borshch (Netpeak group) for interesting ideas and suggestions.

A swot analysis was done: the participants exchanged views on the strengths and weaknesses of the industry in the region, considered opportunities and touched a little on the topic of risks. In the next step, all participants will fill out a questionnaire, where they will indicate what, in their opinion, must be taken into account when planning and organizing the process of developing the Strategy for the Restoration and Development of the Odesa Region, what ideas, suggestions, warnings they want to offer before filling out the Strategy, etc.