Sergey Tokarev at Websummit: Business Should Take Care of the System in Which It Grows and Develops

This year, unveiled the opening of the Ukrainian tech sector at the world’s largest IT conference: Web Summit that was held in Lisbon, Portugal. The conference began with a panel discussion on the development of entrepreneurship in times of uncertainty. While presenting at the conference the Founding Partner of Roosh Ventures, Sergey Tokarev stated business should take care of the system in which it grows and develops. In other words, companies should focus more care on employees, society, public infrastructure, as well as the international community.

Web Summit is an annual technology event, one of the largest in the world. It focuses on IT, emerging technologies, and venture capitalism, and provides an opportunity to listen to, talk to, and create a network with CEOs, founders, investors, media, politicians, and influencers in the tech world. In 2022, Web Summit welcomed more than 70,000 attendees from all over the world.

During the four days of the summit, the Ukrainian pavilion hosted not only the Roosh founder but also Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Oleksandr Bornyakov, Deputy Chief of Party, USAID Justice for All Program Natalia Petrova, and Head of Product Pawa Tetyana Yaroshenko who also shared their experience on how to save a business during a time of crisis and war and how to identify opportunities to develop a business. In particular, the speakers discussed how crises affect employment opportunities in the Ukrainian IT industry and the developing processes for startups.

Talking about the state of the system, Sergey Tokarev iterated that he always dreamed of creating the largest hub in Eastern Europe for AI/ML projects in Ukraine, and that is why he and his colleagues decided to launch a full-fledged tech ecosystem.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and all the associated restrictions, he risked launching Roosh Ventures as he believed that Ukraine would endure all the hardships and challenges as it did many times previously. Roosh Ventures is a venture capital firm that helps startups to scale and accelerate, including assisting with mentoring, sharing experience, funding, and offering them access to a variety of resources.

In addition to Roosh Ventures, the Roosh ecosystem includes also venture studio Pawa, AI-based startups Reface and Zibra AI, SET University in Kyiv, and AI HOUSE, a project for training AI and ML specialists and helping them create a community.

“Ukraine is strong. Ukraine is steel. Ukraine embodies bravery. It has shown the power of cooperation to the whole world. The war pointed out that businesses should take care of the system in which they grow and develop. These are people, education, society, public infrastructure, and the international community. We should remain a Ukrainian business and work for the development of the country. We can resist only by uniting,” Tokarev said.

Let us remind you that Web Summit is the largest IT conference in the world, which takes place in Lisbon, Portugal. This year, the event was held from November 1st to 4th. Ukraine was presenting its own pavilion at the conference for the second year in a row. The First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska opened the Web Summit and discussed how technology should be used for creating new things and helping people, and not for destructive purposes.