Recently we welcomed a delegation from South Korea. Guests from Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI)and from Global Entrepreneurs Foundation had an interesting discussion with IT Park regarding the IT sector of Uzbekistan economy.

KISDI is a think tank advising the Ministry of Society and ICT of Korea on policy making for almost 30 years. It’s expertise encompasses all the segments of information and communication technologies, from broadband deployment and frequency allocation to digital economy, smart city and development of start-up ecosystems. For the last 8 years the KISDI’s international department has been providing consultations to developing countries, helping them formulate their policy in ICT. This year, under the partnership agreement between Uzbekistan and Korea, KISDI is conducting a survey in our country and helping IT Park to create a road map for development of the start-up ecosystem in Uzbekistan.

IT Park was visited by two guests from Korea: Dr Derik Kim, Chief Entrepreneurial Officer of Global Entrepreneurs Foundation, and Ms Jeong Soomi, International Cooperation Research, KISDI. We had an insightful discussion on the prospects of the ICT sector in Uzbekistan and the role IT Park might play in its development.

IT Park: Dr Derik, can you share your vision on the chances Uzbekistan has to become the IT Republic in Central Asia at the initial stages?

Dr Derik: I see the two essential factors for developing IT here and becoming the leader of IT in Central Asia: your location and the fast development of IT education here. Geographically, Uzbekistan has an excellent position to communicate and work together with Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and with other Central Asian countries. And I found many IT universities and engineers in Uzbekistan. Plus, I am aware that you will grow many and many young IT engineers in the upcoming years.

At the same time, if we look outside the area – to the other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – your leadership is not guaranteed. Recently countries like Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia have been also focusing on the same thing. They are offering many services to east Asian countries such as China, Korea. This year Azerbaijan and Georgia are inviting me to organize something there. Many Korean companies have contacted them already. Most of the CIS Countries are now focusing on IT Industry and start-up innovation, and there might be some competition between them and you.

But among the Central Asia countries Uzbekistan, in my opinion, has the best position.

IT Park: What steps should Uzbekistan take to become the center of IT growth in Central Asia? What would be your recommendations for us, what obstacles and barriers for this have you identified?

Dr Derik: Creating the hardware ICT infrastructure is not the hard part of the task, any country can do that. But the software part is more complicated. It requires high qualified people. So far you don’t possess enough human resource of high qualification, the overall level is low or medium. Many young engineers and many students are now growing, but there is still a huge gap in the overall level of software qualification.  Filling this gap could be named the first objective for Uzbekistan on the way to success.

To achieve this, I would like to suggest working with some global players in the fields of IT and start-up innovation. Uzbekistan has enough to offer to the global players in order to attract them to come here. If they see their benefits from coming, they can cover those high level and middle level staff you have lack of. And later, learning from them, your country may fill that gap and rise your own high-qualified people. So, working with global players is the first obvious step you should take.

As for IT Park, you need to identify your goals. It’s good to have a vision and the Big Dream, but you also need goals set for, let’s say, 2 years and 5 years – set them first and then move forward and achieve them.

Ms Jeong: I’d like to add to this: at the initial stages you should focus on one industry. Don’t try to do everything in the same time. Pick one field, like software start-ups, and you successfully develop this pipeline, then expand to other industry. Make this principle a foundation for your stage by stage plan to go forward.

 IT Park: If we keep the current dynamic of development in IT Sector, how many years will it take to become IT leader country in Central Asia?

 Dr Derik: It is very difficult to say, every year the situation is changing really fast. For example, one of my friends, who operates an accelerator program (AP) centre in Stockholm, has opened his Uzbekistan branch from zero ground two years ago – and when I came here to Tashkent last year, they had only one co-working space. Now they have 5 co-working spaces only in Tashkent, and are planning to open one in Samarkand in October, so within two years they expanded to six. It shows that the ecosystem for start-up innovation in IT is growing very fast. Compare this to their development in Stockholm: four years back, when I visited them the first time, they had only 1500 square meters space, and only 40 start-ups were there. By now they have launched AP centres in New York, Oslo, Helsinki, and Amsterdam, and more than 1200 companies are accelerating at these five centres.

So, you should set up your goals for each year, and then adjust them each year. You see how much is possible to achieve during only two or three years – I think that the eventual goal of becoming a leader country in IT should take five years maximum. If Uzbekistan cannot manage it within five years, I think other countries will get this chance.

IT Park: And what role can IT Park play in this?

Dr Derik: I see two main tasks for IT Park.

First, IT Park is the first public centre for start-ups in Uzbekistan. Which means you should set the benchmarks for the IT start-up ecosystem and IT industry. Uzbekistan needs to establish standards comparable to other global standards, and to develop them is your important role.

Second:  you, guys, need to raise a hero. One of the important things in the areas of innovation and start-ups is having a hero, a success story illustration, like Belarus has, for example. We call this exponential case a hero. Because all the followers want to see a sample case. If you make your hero within two or three years, many entrepreneurs will want to work here with you. In case of failure it will be not be easy for you to success.

Ever heard the saying “from zero to hero”? Your future hero is zero yet, you should identify them from your start-up candidates, find and raise them – help them grow, create a hero.

Ms Jeong: In other words, it is the task of promoting the entrepreneurial spirit in the society. If there is a big hero demonstrating a story of big success, all the others are willing to take the chance and start in IT. They are motivated to get in to entrepreneurial world and start-up their business, and this is the necessary part of the environment where start-ups grow. So, this is the important role you can play: promoting the entrepreneurship in the entire society.

And then the other already mentioned role is setting the playfield: the standards and goals are very important.

But also you must play a role of the gateway for foreign investors: so whoever wants to come in, they will know that you are institution they can trust. And by looking at how successful IT Park is, they would decide to trust you in investing in Uzbekistan and the start-ups you present. That’s why it is so important for you to set the bar high for yourself.

Dr Derik: One more thing: grow an open IT innovation community around IT Park. Don’t make it a closed circle of start-ups you deal with. The community should be open and widely connected to all the society, you need to be in touch and have connections with big local IT companies, with other start-ups, universities, companies from other industries. Let’s say if Uztelecom, or telecommunication bank, or other players come here from time to time and hold various meetings, workshops, seminars – it will be a good sample of that healthy, useful community connecting industry and innovators. And building this connection is the one more role IT Park should play in development the environment required for successful growth of the IT industry in Uzbekistan.