New Energy, Agrotech and Women Power: Ukraine House Begins Its Week-Long Campaign in Davos
Davos, 24 January 2018. During its first working day, Ukraine House Davos featured discussion panels on new energy and agrotech, followed by International Women’s Power Hour, hosted by Vice-Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze.
Titled New Energy: Powering Economies of the Future, Ukraine House’s opening panel focused on solutions to ensure energy transition towards a greener economy in both the global as well as Ukrainian contexts. Boris Balan, VP Europe, Northland Power, Carlos Pascual, Senior Vice President, IHS Global and Olga Bielkova, MP of Ukraine participated in the panel as speakers.
Commenting on the increasing role of renewable energy Boris Balan stated: “The trend for renewables is indisputable – coal and all carbon-based traditional energy sources are going down, renewables are going up”.
Addressing the issue from the Ukrainian perspective, Olga Bielkova emphasised that clean energy will be very cheap in Ukraine “if we are sincerely prepared to remove all the subsidies and if we open up our market to many players. The transformation is possible but only if we see more technologies competing with each other, if we remove the barriers”.
During the discussion all panelists also stressed the growing importance of informational technology and innovation in the new energy sector. “What you see in most of discussions around Davos is integration of information technology and high tech into energy sector and that becomes a defining edge in the ability to create new systems that are more efficient, more resilient, that are cheaper”, said Carlos Pascual. “The world of energy is going to look like the Apples, and Googles, and Amazons. Information technology is going to be fundamentally integrated into every single energy company.”
The main theme of the second panel Europe’s Agro Superpower: Ukraine, Powered by Tech and Innovation was Ukraine’s transition from the old rural economy to a modern and technologically-focused agribusiness. The panel’s speakers were Yuriy Kosyuk, CEO of Ukraine’s leader in agritech MHP, Michael Horsch, Horsch Machines, Tobias Mennes, Global Head Digital Farming Bayer and Yulia Poroshenko, Founder and CEO of AgroHub – a collective impact organization for integration innovations into Ukrainian agribusiness.
Highlighting Ukraine’s innovation potential in the agritech sector, Yulia Poroshenko said: “If you are an investor – think about Ukrainian agricultural startups. Agrohub analyses agri-startups, finds the best solutions, strengthens them with knowledge and networking. Our partners from agro business give them opportunity to test their prototypes on real farms and fields”.
Commenting on the rise of agritech in Ukraine, Yuriy Kosyuk stated: “I am investing in agritech, in the young generation of innovators, because I believe in the development of our country. Ukraine has significant achievements in technology. I know that our business models are used in European countries, in particular in Poland”.
The final event of the day – International Women’s Power Hour – featured welcome remarks by Alexa Chopivsky, Executive Director, Ukraine House Davos, and keynote address by Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration and an ardent gender equality advocate.
Talking about the changing gender ratio in Ukraine’s business environment, Ms. Klympush-Tsintsadze stated: “40% of all entrepreneurs in Ukraine are women, 50% in small business are women, a bit less – 30% – occupy executive positions in large business, but the overall trend is still very positive”.
Noting that this year in Davos there is a special focus on gender equality issues, she went on to say that: “The world today is trying to deal with the ecological, economic, geopolitical tasks before dealing with the gender equality issue. I think that in this approach is putting the cart before the horse. I am convinced that without solving the issue of gender equality it will be much more difficult to deal with all of those other challenges facing the international community today”.
Six of the seven Ukraine House Davos Organizing Committee members are women.