Kyiv hosted the First All-Ukrainian Forum on Information Technologies dedicated to Quasar- Micro Corporation’s tenth anniversary. Its name, XXI Century Mains, is deeply symbolic: it is the informational main embracing the world that can be considered the most precise symbol for the beginning of new age.
The main subject of this hi-tech forum was information technologies affecting development of society. When opening the session, Yevhen Marchuk, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, stressed that to enter the society of the developed European countries, Ukraine has to solve two strategic objectives. The first is to provide for the dynamic development of Ukraine’s industrial potential and to create a self-sufficient domestic market aimed on satisfying human vital needs. However, even attaining this goal cannot assure the socioeconomic system’s competitiveness on the world and European scenes. This is why the second objective is to provide for the development of the economy associated with an essentially new orientation.
An obligatory component of successful reforms in all the socially sensitive countries, Mr. Marchuk stressed, is surpassing development of scientific, technological, and intellectual potential. Today, world competition priorities and aims are undergoing radical changes, and the most critical struggle is conducted for intellectual resources. For this purpose powerful mechanisms are being created to pump these resources from less developed countries to more developed ones, the so-called brain drain. Ukraine faces a real threat of its national scientific, technological, and intellectual degradation. This is why one of the determining priorities is creating conditions and mechanisms for the transformation of people’s intellectual potential into intellectual capital. In other words, national intellect must find its technological application to the economy development process.
To secure Ukraine’s compulsory movement is a very hard but feasible task, which is evidenced by informational technology industry leaders’ achievements. According to Mr. Marchuk, the Quasar-Micro Corporation can serve as a model for a structure aimed at the future. In our days it is impossible to imagine the process of changing Ukrainian economy into the new postindustrial technology era without Quasar-Micro’s modern production. “There is an old saying: If you want to foresee the future, build it yourself. Today, such a noteworthy structure in our society as Quasar-Micro is playing a decisive role,” the RNBOU secretary concluded.
How big the nation’s intellectual potential is, can be seen out of two figures quoted by Yevhen Utkin, Quasar-Micro President: there are 820,000 students in Ukraine now, and according to American experts’ data around 5,000,000 businesspeople. It is they who are expected to become a leading power for science and technology progress at the beginning of the third millennium, years that will be characterized by a new information boom. Quasar-Micro is prepared for a new breakthrough into the market because it firmly follows its principle: “Always in advance.” That is why Mr. Utkin sees the way the company has passed in ten years as a century long marathon.
In our days it is hard even to imagine existence of human civilization without the everyday using of intelligence technology. “Hi- tech affects everything, it changes the world and first of all the individual. Hi tech makes people free and raises their labor productivity,” Mr. Utkin believes. “Hi-tech also affects the state: now Ukraine has finally admitted that IT should be an object of state’s attention.” However, there still is a way to go before information technologies actually flourish in Ukraine: in terms of investment in this sphere our country occupies one of the last places, having around 1,000,000 PC users and 250,000 volume of PC sails in 1999. In total, the world computer park numbers 550 million, and the number of Internet active users is 290 million.
Quasar-Micro associates the immediate future with the development of electronic business and is ready to help anybody working in the IT industry. Mr. Utkin in his final speech at the hi-tech forum turned to his colleagues with the following appeal: “We can use our knowledge and efforts to help you create an e-business, to help your companies become more effective. If you are ready to take a step to meet it, we will always be there for you.”
Other reports at the forum were made by IT industry leading producers’ top managers: Steve Chase, Intel’s architecture management director for Europe, the Near East, and Africa; Hilmar Lorentz, Hewlett-Packard general manager for CIS countries; Ichiro Hiroshi, Fujitsu Deutschland president; and Bohdan Kupych, UMC marketing and sales director.
