Ukraine Holds 4th Largest Programmer Population

andrewuoft points out this BusinessWeek article on the budding technology sector of Ukraine; the article points out that Ukraine has -- "after the U.S., India, and Russia -- the fourth largest number of computer programmers in the world" and that "Even today, scientific institutes each year churn out some 50,000 science or technology graduates. Not surprisingly, Ukrainians don't see why their country can't become a big player in the global technology market, like India."

Comments

Correlation?

[l810c]

4th largest Geek Population?

Maybe this would explain why there seem to be so many Hot, Available Ukrainian Women looking to get out.

Globalization

[FiReaNGeL]

With the economical globalization these days, the trend (strategy?) for some countries seem to overspecialize in one specific area (in this case, IT) to outperform competition on a worldwide scale. Risky for sure, but it seems to work right now (at least for India, who reap the profits of investing massively in IT).

Quality Not Quantity

[derEikopf]

What the future of technology needs more than anything is the reversal of the quantity philosophy. More is not always better.

Small typo

[Anonymous Coward]

Both the submitter and the FA author seem to have misspelled "Elbonia."

more to it

[Quixote]

There's more to becoming a global player than just the number of programmers. The infrastructure is important: not only the physical infrastructure like roads, trains and powerlines, but also the governmental infrastructure (like courts, government offices, etc.). Plus, a stable government (not a one-man show like in many other places) is necessary: money flees uncertainty.

It is unfortunate, but Ukraine has gained notoriety for being the base of a lot of the "east european bride" scammers. Plus, the general perceived lawlessness of the fUSSR republics is not conducive to investment. Face it: post communism, there were a lot of problems with foreign partners of Russian businessmen being bumped off and strong-armed.

Things may be different now, but a good reputation takes time to develop.

As far as India is concerned: there are many Indians in high places in tech companies in the US, and the natual tendency is for them to favor India (a known commodity, to them) for outsourcing their operations.

Article text in case someone actually reads it

[a.different.perspect]

and the server goes down.

Building The Muscle To Be A Tech Player

Ukraine has a bunch of cornfields, a bunch of old steel mills, and not much else. Right? Well, Ukraine also has a budding technology sector, and -- after the U.S., India, and Russia -- the fourth largest number of computer programmers in the world. It was a main center of the Soviet programming industry. The first computer built in continental Europe was made in Ukraine in 1951. Even today, scientific institutes each year churn out some 50,000 science or technology graduates. Not surprisingly, Ukrainians don't see why their country can't become a big player in the global technology market, like India. "We want Ukraine to become a technological country again, not just a country with agriculture and tank production," says Yuri Sivitsky, chairman of Softline, one of Ukraine's largest software producers.

What are the chances? While Ukraine isn't likely ever to rival India, it certainly has the potential to become a player. Just look at Softline. Founded by mathematicians in 1995, it has 500 employees, up from a dozen in 1998. Revenues are set to hit $10 million this year, up 70% from 2003. Its clients include Ingersoll-Rand Co. (IR ) and Hugo Boss.

The offshore programming industry, although small, is growing fast. According to Market-Visio, a research firm in Moscow, Ukraine's software exports will grow 43% this year to $100 million. Around 10,000 programmers are employed in the industry, working for customers such as Boeing (BA ), DaimlerChrysler (DCX ), General Electric (GE ), Citibank (C ), and NASA. Much of the work is customized business software. But gaming is also growing. Kvasar-Micro, Ukraine's largest info tech company, recently landed an order to develop a computer game for mobile handsets.

Ukraine's main selling point is the quality of its mathematical education. Another is cheap labor. An average programmer in Ukraine earns $500 a month, not quite as low as India, but half the level in Moscow and a fraction of programming salaries in the West. But the edge Ukraine gets from high education and low wages is offset by other factors. Around 90% of all software on sale in Ukraine is pirated, so domestic makers can't get the revenue they need to grow. Other problems are a lack of business skills, venture finance, and government support. But things are looking up. Management skills are improving as Ukrainians gain Western experience and earn MBAs. The government is mulling tax incentives for tech investment and starting to tighten piracy laws.

Some of the biggest names in the global technology industry have started to wake up to Ukraine's potential. "Ukraine is building up quickly," says Gerard J. Kleisterlee, CEO of Dutch electronics giant Royal Philips Electronics (PHG ), which makes an array of high-tech goods there. Flextronics International Ltd. (FLEX ), a Singapore electronics powerhouse, recently set up a software design lab in Ukraine, and CEO Michael E. Marks is enthusiastic about the nation's potential as an engineering and design power. If he's right, Ukraine has a digital future.

I'm shocked, so shocked.

[loraksus]

Not surprisingly, Ukrainians don't see why their country can't become a big player in the global technology market, like India."

Because of the massive amounts of corruption at all levels of government? Organized crime bosses who refuse to let companies set up shop without bribes?

Re:speak for yourself, object.

[derEikopf]

Indeed, that is where people like Linus Torvalds make an odds-defying explosion into mainstream computing. However, there is more to my statement than just programmer population. Quality also refers to program quality. Not half-assed buggy software that was hurriedly released because of a dealine, and then half-assed patches and updates that were also released on a deadline.

Ukrainian programmers

[slavik1337]

the next Doom3/HL2/Far Cry killer that THQ will publish next year, STALKER: SHadow of Chernobyl is developed by a Ukrainian company called GSC gameworld. They also developed Firestarter if you played it :)

Re:Corruption

[luvirini]

Well, the fact is, corruption is a matter of fact in large parts of the world.

India is among the quite corrupt contries, like number 90 of 146 in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2004 http://www.transparency.org/cpi/2004/cpi2004.en.ht ml#cpi2004

So corruption it itself does not seem to be able to stop tech-business, though Ukraine is way lower at #122.

Re:hold on

[eobanb]

I wouldn't think that emulating India is really the way to go

Yah, they should just run it natively.

Ukranian guy won a software competition

[AndreyFilippov]

Last winter I've got an idea of trying a software competition to develop a video streamer for the network cameras developed by Elphel (both software and hardware are GPL'ed). I decided to try Russian software developers (I'm Russian myself) so I wrote an article in a Russian online magazine "Computerra" and offered a $3000 prize for the best streamer to use with the camera (the code was to retain author's copyright and be released under GNU/GPL). I did not expect many participants and thought I'l sacrifice 3 cameras. But it turned different and I've sent out 9 of them - 4 to Russia, 3 - to Ukraine, 1 - to Germany and 1 to India (the article was in Russian - that restricted participants to Russian-reading).

Of those 9 participants 6 reached the finish line and the winner is Ukrainian Alexander Melichenko. What amazed me was that I've got the first version of his steamer in just a couple weeks after the announcement _before_ he received the hardware! Hi used my online camera to download his application over the Internet and made it working. And the camera uses Axis ETRAX100LX CPU - something he never programmed before.

All that software is now on our Sourceforge project page - https://sourceforge.net/projects/elphel.

Contradicting the popular opinion

[DataDragon]

I've just gotten done reading the initial reaction of trolls and jokes about this.

Ukraine does have quality engineers, does have better economics and less corruption than other CIS countries, and has been a considerable supporter of US interests (e.g., they dropped one of the highest levels of troops into Iraq for support. Even though, honestly, a country like that couldn't afford large military action, they did so anyway and I might add- with a level of political push considerably lower than others.)

They are a society with European heritage, a large number of the population understands English, German, French, Italian, etc.) and for most Americans travelling to a typical "outsource" destination, Ukraine is both a familiar and not-so-culture-shocking destination (Compared, say, to China or India, for most Americans)

I cannot say they don't have drawbacks, but I've researched the area heavilly and found that the people are much like the USA glory days -- preferring "Handles" and such, for fun mostly, and their display of individual pride. Here in old Silicon Valley, I'm corporate Borg. Getting sick of it.

The organized crime aspects, well, I've had many discussions about that as well-- software isn't really their target, though. In most cases, its usually "competition" that drives the hostilities, and likewise, the vast majority of such cases are non-violent... just annoying (phone turned off, electricity cut, etc.) Like anywhere in the world, if you don't want trouble, don't start trouble. Respect goes a long way in those cultures.

Personally, I'd jump at the chance to go to Ukraine myself. I think it would be rewarding and fun to help cultivate not only the economic flow, but to work with the people there.

For those who are more politically inclined about how the Ukrainian air is going, the present Presidential Elections in Ukraine are showing a huge outpouring of support for the new candidate that wishes to bring Ukraine into the EEC.

There aren't that many CIS countries that can say they are trying quite as hard to embrace the Westernized world by cooperation and with as little grandstanding as Ukraine is doing.

Anyway, they aren't so bad: Wikkkipedia on Ukraine and they can ROCK too!

Peace out. :)

Re:This is not serious!

[antoy]

Get a hold of yourself.

Have you ever been to Ukraine? I haven't, but I've been to Romania, a neighbouring country with the same mindset regarding computer programming. I was there for BOI (the Balkan Olympiad in informatics) and let me tell you that Romanians kicked our Balkan (and in other times international) asses. I'm not going to chalk this up to training and practice because they were awfully talented guys (and it would like I'm bitter, which I am not), but they *do* have an excellent education system which, as I've heard, would teach them about graphs and minimum spanning trees while we were being taught on using MS Paint on Windows 3.1.

Is it a rich country? From what I've seen in Iasi, it's not. Do they know how to get there? Somebody in their Ministry of Education sure does.

Re:I rolled 6 sixes!

[Ohreally_factor]

Speaking as a fellow Californian, you're full of shit. California was never "emptied" of Mexicans. Hispanic people have lived continuously in California since the days when the missions were founded.

What's funny is that most of the anti-immigration people are probably descendants of the Oakies, the refugees from the dust bowl. I guess being poor white trash isn't so bad when you have someone you can treat like a nigger.

Re:ASK SLASHDOT: What language to learn

[rxmd]

Learn Russian. People who live on Ukraine typically speak Russian or Polish better than Ukrainian.

This is not quite right. It depends on where you are and whom you hang around with, and there is a large Russian-language minority, but still Ukrainian is the majority language in Ukraine. And you're completely wrong about the Polish; even in the West Ukraine, the dialects of Ukrainian are not mutually intelligible with Polish at all, even though they share some features.

And most of Ukrainian programmers know Russian. Because there are a lot more technical literature published in Russian than in the Ukrainian.

That's true. Which is why I'd agree with you and recommend learning Russian; most Ukrainians tend to speak it, even if many of them don't particularly love it, and generally Russian is a much more useful language in the world than Ukrainian, because you can use it in Russia, too.

Ukrainian language is more or less invention of nationalists politics from West Ukraine.

This, again, is completely wrong. In debunking Ukrainian nationalism as a whole, you're spreading another nationalist myth, from Russia this time. (Since I'm neither Ukrainian nor Russian, I think I can say this.)

Ukrainian is an East Slavic language of its own. Dialects from East Ukraine are mutually intelligible with Russian to some extent. I've learned Russian as a foreign language (I'm German), and when I listen to Ukrainian speakers from East Ukraine, I understand about a third.

However, literary Ukrainian is far less close to Russian, and I don't understand it as easily. The literary language is also quite old; the first grammar of Ukrainian was published well in the 1830s (about twenty years after the first modern grammar of Russian), and the center of Ukrainian nationalism in the early 19th century was Kharkiv (or Kharkov in Russian), not the Polish-influenced West.

And most educated people are located in the East part (Kharkov region) where Russian was always native language.

Wrong again; the center of education is probably the capital, Kyiv (Kiev in Russian), which is in an Ukrainian-speaking region, and Lviv in the far west has an extremely good university. Even in the East, Russian isn't and wasn't "always" native language everywhere; my girlfriend is from Dnepopetrovsk, which is about as far east as it gets, and she's a native speaker of Ukrainian.