July 2016 - On 5 July, Kostiantyn Likarchuk, Partner of Kinstellar’s Kyiv office, and Olena Kuchynska, Managing Associate, participated in a discussion on the regulation of cloud computing in Ukraine as part of the 2nd Kyiv Post CEO Dinner. The discussion came as Ukraine’s parliament considers a bill on government regulations on cloud computing — the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the internet to store, manage and process data. The bill is supported by Dmytro Shymkiv, the tech-savvy deputy head of the Presidential Administration and a participant in the discussion.
New legislation would allow the state to shift to cloud storage more easily, and thereby gain all the advantages this entails regarding data analysis, rather than continuing to use cumbersome and expensive local servers.
The dinner attendees all agreed that Ukraine needs to move faster into the digital age and needs a well-developed strategy to do so. The consensus was that Ukraine, and especially its government, needs to “get its head in the clouds” and embrace new computing technology that promises to improve both the economy and the sharing of knowledge at a dizzying pace.
In fact, digital services enabled by cloud technologies — from 3G mobile to payment systems — have been the most popular innovations in Ukraine in recent years. The greater use by the state of cloud technologies could also be a boon to the domestic data storage industry, which is under-developed. The telecoms and banking sectors are seen as major potential customers.
Representatives of two of the big-six cloud computing multinationals, Microsoft and Oracle, were among those attending the dinner. Concerns were expressed about whether local firms would be about to compete against the industry giants.
Kinstellar has a dedicated TMT practice with a well-established track record providing innovative solutions and bringing expert knowledge of local markets and regulatory environments together with international experience. For more information, please contact Olena Kuchynska, Managing Associate, at , or +38 044 394 9040.