The 4th business mission of the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance participants took place in Prague from April 23 to 26. The pivotal event on the agenda was the Artificial Intelligence (AI) forum, a strategic platform for fostering bilateral cooperation, which included a visit to the EIDH Brain4Industry and several B2B-C2C meetings. April 25 also marked the official launch of the bilateral committee “Ukraine – Czech Republic.” The UCA report provides a comprehensive account of these exchanges and outlines the outcomes.
Forum on Artificial Intelligence
The forum was held on April 24 at the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic. The exchange program, which runs from spring 2023, involves two ministries — industry and trade and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Thanks to the last UCA, it is possible to organize full-fledged delegations from Ukraine and overcome problems with departure. This time, David Müller, Director General of Section for European Union and Foreign Trade, Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic. Tomá Kopen, Governmental Envoy for the Reconstruction of Ukraine, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, spoke on behalf of the Czech government.
Mr. Müller noted that the Czech government continues to provide direct support for developing Ukrainian-Czech economic relations. This year, with the Ministry’s financial support, several programs and events are being organized. These include the Aid4Trade support program for Ukrainian investment projects, the conference for startups Invest in Bravery, extensive exchanges with the involvement of the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and enterprises at the Brno MSV exhibition. Also, support for this program for supporting high-tech sectors—cluster-oriented UCA.
From the Ukrainian side, the guests were greeted by Vitaly Usatiy, chargé d’affairs a.i., Embassy of Ukraine in Prague.
Mr. Tomash Kopechny, known as the chief lawyer of Ukraine, called on the Czech participants to actively join Ukraine’s support programs, in particular in the context of AI, emphasizing that “Ukraine is an open field for any technological experiments, and the almost complete absence of any regulation of AI creates unprecedented opportunities for market participants.” Addressing the Ukrainian participants, Mr. Kopechny emphasized — “Ukrainians can inspire us, and we really need it in the Czech Republic.“
Oleksandr Yurchak, the head of the Ukrainian delegation and CEO of the UСA, introduced the delegation members. It included representatives of 3 clusters — APPAU, Kharkiv IT cluster, and Zaporizhzhya IAM. Among them are well-known developers of industrial A.I. – Kyiv IT-Enterprise, AIM Group and a-Gnostic, Kharkiv Azov-Controls, Zaporizhzhia Infocom, and Odesa 482.Solutions. Separate presentations about their capabilities were made by the Kharkiv IT cluster and the Kyiv DIH “Center 4.0 KPI named after I. Sikorsky”.
In general, participants’ positions cover the most popular topics and applications in Industrial AI as — predictive maintenance, digital doubles, optimization and forecasting of electricity consumption, AI for solutions in supply chains, using Data spaces for orchestrating chains and ecosystems, solutions for robotics and drones (incl. Dual-use / Miltech), as well as solutions for medicine. The concept of green certification according to ESG standards, which is offered by ESG standards. 482. Solutions aroused the most significant interest in the Czech side. Leonid Khatskevich, BDM of the company, called on the Czech side to actively join this decision as a federal platform since this is not a distant prospect, a requirement of the European Union, which will come into effect in 2024.
It is worth noting that in preparing the Ukrainian side’s positions for the forum, the UCA held a number of exchanges among its participants and partners, clarifying the general challenges, state, and prospects of cooperation in the field of AI. This includes the positions of the Ministry of Digital Transformation and other ministries.
Czech partners, playing an active role in proposing areas of collaboration, offer cooperation and collaboration in the field of digital doubles and smart manufacturing, use of computer vision and detection of sound events for Smart City projects, etc. Another area proposed by the Czech partners is forestry management using AI. This active involvement of the Czech partners in submitting areas of collaboration makes them feel valued and integral to the partnership, fostering a sense of mutual respect and understanding.
Attending EDIH Brain4Industry
The main partner in organizing Ukrainian missions is CzechInno, the leading Czech agency for innovative development. Since CzechInno is the curator of the development of the Czech EDIH network, every Ukrainian delegation visit includes a visit to the first Czech EDIH.
These visits are precious for APPAU, which since 2018 has been trying to launch a network of Industry 4.0 Centers in Ukraine, and this strategy migrated to the development of a network of Ukrainian DIHs in 2021. The result is the launch of 2 DIHs in Kyiv in 2021, and since then, we have been trying to support our hubs in every possible way. Representatives of DIH from KPI, who are also members of APPAU, are constantly present in the UCA delegation. These visits have already played an essential role in preparing several proposals for clusters and DIHs. Participants from the UCA make up almost half of the applicants who submitted to the final competition of the European Commission for the creation of the Ukrainian EDIH network. The results are expected in July.
Returning to the visit of EDIH in Prague, what interesting and important things did we hear? EDIH Brain4Industry is located 20 km from Prague, in the picturesque mountain village of Dolni Brežany. His main specialization covers 3 major areas — Additive Technologies (AM), Laser Technologies and Plasma, the use of A.I. around the above directions. Ukrainian participants were most interested in the following points:
Transformation of the territory—in 14 years, thanks to the EU structural funds, the degrading countryside has turned into a thriving oasis of scientific and technical institutions. The village has turned into a science park—now more than 1,000 scientists from various disciplines live and work there, and the average age of scientists is less than 40.
Based on EDIH, a modern production laboratory of advanced manufacturing has been created. Where the entire range of modern additive technologies is available, from printing simple parts and simple types of plastic to powerful machines for metal printing and post-processing of products. Prototyping and manufacturing spare parts and complex parts is one of EDIH’s key propositions to local businesses—almost any regional company can access it.
Launch of the bilateral committee
On April 25, the 1st meeting of the bilateral committee “Smart Industries: Czech Republic – Ukraine” took place. The event was held in a hybrid format. On the Ukrainian side, 5 committee members have been identified; this process is still ongoing on the Czech side. The committee’s mission is to develop and maintain a joint development agenda, and the main tool is a portfolio of cooperation projects and programs. Today, it has about 20 projects, project initiatives, and important events in bilateral cooperation, which are a testament to our collective efforts. In particular, one of the key results for cluster cooperation is the inclusion of Czech partners in 3 consortia currently led by different clusters of UСA. This results from high trust and relations developing over the past two years. Among the measures, it is worth paying attention to the following.
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- The UСA in Ukraine plans to hold exchanges in the form of round tables and a separate conference in the fall within the framework of the ClusterINT project. In addition to the Czech Republic, UСA attracts representatives from Romania and Poland.
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- Another conference on Smart.Industry will be held in the Czech Republic in October as part of the MSV exhibition.
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- Separately, we plan to participate in other events organized by the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic.
Feedback from the Ukrainian delegation
You need to attend such conferences not only to make new contacts and initiate new projects but, first and foremost, to synchronize with those developments and solutions that are currently relevant and already working in Europe. I can say that Ukrainian companies are at a reasonably high level – something is more developed in our country, while the Czechs have solutions we do not yet have. So, we will look for common ground for joint projects
ALEXANDER OCHKASOV (IT ENTERPRISE)
After this conference, it became clear to me that our proposal for an ecosystem DataSpace is not just our fixed idea but an absolute and unconditional mainstream in Europe. For Europeans, such ecosystems and sectoral data spaces are no longer a matter of an idea but a path they confidently follow and involve more and more actors in this idea. Therefore, our company continues to work in this direction, and of course, we bring very useful and interesting contacts from the Czech Republic for further cooperation.
Leonid Hatskevich (482.solution)
During this business mission, I discovered a new business opportunity. Almost all the speakers and in conversations between members of our delegation repeatedly raised the issue of high-quality, adequately prepared data sets. By the nature of its activities, our company is engaged in collecting, accumulating, processing, and preparing a large amount of data at our clients’ facilities. We need to do this in our work to make the right and timely business decisions for our clients. Such data can be a commodity for companies that use such datasets to train and train AI models :). We have already started working in this direction and have taken the first steps towards further cooperation with some delegation members.)
SERGIY BONDARENKO (AZOV CONTROLS
Next steps and benchmarks for UCA clusters in developing relationships
The following can be noted as the main conclusions and results of this visit:
- The deepening and development of relations between the Ukrainian and Czech sides continues. However, the themes of this development are different in different categories — C2C connections and relations (between clusters and other ecosystem coordinators) are developing much faster than at the B2B level. On the one hand, this is natural from the perspective of the organizers, and it ensures the sustanability of relations; on the other hand, insufficient efficiency at the B2B level is beginning to cause some concern. Parties need to focus much more on obtaining concrete results for B2B companies.
- The launch of the bilateral committee is a marker of the deepening of relations between the innovative industrial hi-tech ecosystems of the Czech Republic and Ukraine and a response to the challenge formulated above. The committee should significantly increase the effectiveness of cooperation by focusing on specific projects and action programs involving SMEs on both sides.
- Relations with the Czech EDIH get a new perspective, considering the rapid development of high-tech clusters of the UCA’s — primarily Photonics clusters and the Ukrainian cybersecurity cluster.
In the context of industrial high-tech challenges, particularly AI, and consolidating exchanges in Prague with a visit to Hannover Messe, we are fixing the trend of growing competition in almost all segments of industrial AI. Although the positions of Ukrainian developers look strong, and the products are pretty innovative, several conclusions are apparent. The first is investment in AI startups. They are entirely disproportionate in Ukraine compared to Western countries, especially the USA. Therefore, optimal strategies for entering global markets with your own product should consider at least two factors: a) attracting significant investments in startups and b) entering the technological ecosystems of major players.
A new trend observed in Hannover Messe is that such ecosystems can be ecosystems of big brands and federated Manufacturing-X platforms. The Hannover Report Webinar on May 2 will add more on this topic.
Therefore, the complex tasks for developing relations in Smart industries between the Czech Republic and Ukraine are becoming clearer, and the coordination of actions is becoming a must-have factor. The ClusterInt project, led by UCA, allocates the necessary human resources for this.
The priority tasks of the committee for the near future are the following:
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- Ensuring the high-quality preparation and submission of 3 consortia applications, including Czech partners, for the EU-UA Cluster Partnership cluster competition.
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- Preparations for the Smart Industry forum in October 2024 have started. The Ukrainian delegation should be much better prepared, considering that this mission will be the last in the program with CzechInno.
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- Separate meetings with ecosystem partners of the Czech Republic will be conducted regarding the outline of perspectives and steps of cooperation by directions of action.
The UCA leadership thanks CzechInno, the involved Czech Ministries, and the Ukrainian participants for Prague’s interesting and useful mission program.
The material was prepared with the support of the European Union and the “Renaissance” International Fund within the framework of the joint initiative “European Renaissance of Ukraine”. The material represents the position of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the position of the European Union or the International Renaissance Foundation.
Executive Directorate of the U