Ukraine's tech entrepreneurs fight war on a different front

over 1 year ago

Hello #Deepdives commumity! It's a beautiful day to be with you here. Today we'll look at Ukraine's tech entrepreneurs and how they've helped in confronting and fighting the war from the tech front. Good evening!

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War have changed and advanced since the bombing of two Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 6&9 August 1945 and this was because of the improvements in technology. Comparing the twin bomb that was used in Japanese cities in 1945 and the sophisticated tactical weapons that have been developed to fight wars today, one will truly say that wars fought today are more deadlier than those fought during WW1 and WW2.

It's obvious that wars today encourages the used of drones and other simple but dangerous ammunitions to engage in battles. This is actually what our today's post is all about.

Since the inception of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, a group of Ukrainian tech entrepreneurs (whose initial intention was to advance more into medical and biotech production) abandoned their course to join in the defense of their country.

Eugene Nayshtetik and his five co-workers shuttered their company developing medical and biotech startups to join the defense forces days after Russia invaded Ukraine. Within two months, their commanders agreed it would be more useful if they swapped their military gear for computers.

With the government's blessing, Nayshtetik and his team of engineers moved to neighboring Poland where they raised initial funding from a Polish company, Air Res Aviation, to develop a new drone for the Ukrainian military.

Jerzy Nowak, president and co-owner of Air Res Aviation said his company initially invested $200,000 into the new project to enable them develop drones for defensive purposes. Although, the initial purpose of defensive changed overtime and these weapons are also used for offensive operations against the Russian aggression.

The Defender drone, now ready for testing, is designed to withstand strong winds to enable surveillance in bad weather, can fly vertically and carry big payloads. It's an example of how some startups in Ukraine's dynamic tech sector are switching to pursue military projects.

"We had our own portfolio of medical and biotechnology civilian projects before the war," Nayshtetik told Reuters. "We never dreamt of killing people. We wanted to heal people but the situation changed."

The Ukrainian military affirmed that these new tech startups have changed the face of the war in the different battlefields, ranging from easy assess to the enemy's location and the civilian drones. Indeed, it has helped the Ukrainian military to sustain the high offensive weapons used by the Russian military.

"The Ukrainians are outmatched by every numerical scale: in terms of numbers of forces; in terms of numbers when it comes to equipment. And yet they're holding their own," said a senior NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "One of the reasons they're holding their own is that they have, in a very innovative way, integrated technology into warfighting."

Prior to the war in Ukraine, the Ukrainian tech industry have been one of the fastest growing enterprise in central and eastern Europe. This has tremendously grown since 2017 and the switching from normal tech to get involved in producing military hardwares have improved by 9-fold to reach 23 billion euros, according to data from Dealroom.com.

Ukraine has a long standing success in producing best brains in maths and computer science, which has led many to join the tech entrepreneurs in developing medical, biotech and now civilian defenders drones.

The country boasted 285,000 software developers in 2021 with an additional 25,000 graduating from tech universities annually, according to software development outsourcing company Softjourn.

But with most emerging companies in Ukraine focused on the domestic market, many startups suffered a collapse in demand following the war - which has killed tens of thousands of people, reduced cities to rubble and wreaked havoc on infrastructure.

Ukraine's Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov said the intensity of the fighting has meant that some concepts can flow from the drawing board to the battlefield in months, if not days.

While acknowledging the critical role of weapons supplied by Western nations in helping to fight the Russians, he added that the ability to utilize the know-how of tech-savvy Ukrainians at home and abroad has proved invaluable.

I'll conclude by saying that the government of Ukraine to increase it's military spending and distribute these resources to local tech companies that'll develop weapons that'll enable the Ukrainian military to defend her territories from complete take over by the Russians. This is one of the best way to know the importance and effectiveness of the Ukrainian tech entrepreneurs.