Ukrainian IT Awards 2020: who won and how will the competition be remembered?

The Ukrainian IT Awards 2020, the largest competition in Ukraine, which annually celebrates the professional success of Ukrainian IT specialists, has ended. On December 10, a festive final took place, during which the organizers awarded the best IT specialists. This year, 33 finalists in 11 nominations made it to the finals, and 11 contestants became winners.

What will be remembered for the Ukrainian IT Awards 2020: 

• for the first time the only and independent organizer of the competition was the IT Ukraine Association;
• for the first time the competition was held with the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine;
• the competition has undergone changes in the visual style;
• the list of nominations has expanded, among which there are 2 team nominations – Innovation-Research of the year and Impact of the Year;
• the objectivity of the assessment was the responsibility of an independent consultant to verify the correctness of the vote count – PwC in Ukraine;
• a record number of participants took part in the event for all the years of the existence of the competition – the organizers received 182 applications from 106 companies;
• the final and awards ceremony took place via Live Broadcast.

“This year we managed to scale and attract a record number of participants for us – 106 IT companies. Together with our partners, we paid special attention to changes in the visual style of the competition, attracted an independent partner to verify the correctness of the vote count for PwC in Ukraine. We are grateful to our partners who support us and are glad that their number is growing every year. Thank you for your trust and participants who share their professional success and create projects that are truly significant for the IT industry”, – said Konstyantyn Vasyuk, Executive Director of the IT Ukraine Association.

The following participants and projects are the winners of the Ukrainian IT Awards 2020: 

1. Business Analysis — Maria Shugurova, Lead Business Analyst/People Manager, EPAM Ukraine.
2. Design — Olesya Podlesna, Lead UX & Product Design, Piavita.
3. Software Engineering — Olexandr Nemish, Software Engineer, IOHK (Input Output).
4. Quality Assurance — Victoria Taranyuk, Associate QA Manager, GlobalLogic Ukraine.
5. Management — Roman Markiv, Program Manager, SoftServe.
6. IT education — Oksana Sitnikova, Director. Learning & Development, EPAM Ukraine.
7. Infrastructure&DevOps — Stanislav Kolenkin, Cloud Architect, SoftServe.
8. Product Management — Bogdan Kit, Product Manager, Ring.
9. Software Architecture — Roman Fenyak, Cloud Solutions Architect, SoftServe.
10. Impact of the Year — USF.
11. Innovation-Research of the year — Mawi BP Watch.

“For me personally, participating in the competition was very pleasant, albeit a little exciting. It’s nice to get to the final side by side with world-class Ukrainian developments. I was also pleased with the versatile and at the same time very expert jury team. The award is an important event in IT, because it not only gives recognition to top specialists and teams, but also inspires other talented specialists to new achievements. As a team leader, it is important for me that she feels like a winner, so I am very happy with our achievement”, – says Vitaly Sakhan, winner in the Innovation-Research of the year nomination, Mawi BP Watch project.

“It’s nice to see that the IT industry in Ukraine, and in particular IT education, is progressing and developing. I am glad that many new progressive and complex educational projects appear in Ukraine. Personally, I am glad that a woman won this nomination for the first time – this is a good sign and incentive that will inspire other women to apply for the competition and win as well. It’s nice that the jury highly appreciated the projects I have implemented for the Ukrainian IT community, but my personal achievements would have been impossible without a strong and professional team. This victory gave our team a powerful incentive for further work and improvement”, – Oksana Sitnikova, Director, shared her impressions of participation in the Ukrainian IT Awards 2020. Learning & Development, EPAM Ukraine, winner in the IT education category.

The winners received prizes from competition partners – certificates from Kyiv Mohyla Business School for training in the following areas:

1. Management: basic managerial skills.
2. Project management.
3. Economic thinking. New paradigms.
4. Emotional competence: components of productive interaction.
5. Strategic Marketing for Tops.

Also gifts for the participants were prepared by the Creative Quarter team:

• free space – Hot Desk plan certificate (12 months) for winners;
• free space – Hot Desk plan certificate (6 months) for finalists.

Olena Volkova, PwC partner and project manager, says that an independent consultant on the correctness of vote counting was involved in the Ukrainian IT Awards 2020 for the first time in 9 years. This means that some procedures needed to be refined and carefully written for even greater transparency and objectivity. This process was complicated by a narrow circle of the target audience of the competition and members of the jury, that is, it is not uncommon for the nominees in a certain category to work in the same companies, and the members of the jury. Therefore, the involvement of PwC in the project began long before the announcement of the award for processing selection rules and scoring methodology to eliminate potential conflicts of interest and objectivity of assessment.

“We agreed to support Ukrainian IT Awards for two reasons. Firstly, PwC is very close to the field of technology and the mission of the award – technology is in PwC’s DNA. We invest in IT solutions that improve the efficiency of our services. As well as leaders in the implementation of innovations, in particular, technological tools for auditing. Secondly, we already have extensive experience in advising and implementing similar projects at the global level and in Ukraine, in particular as part of the national selection for Eurovision 2015-2020, Retail Awards, International Hospitality Awards, HR Brand Awards, etc. We are pleased with the results cooperation with the IT Ukraine Association and joint work on the Ukrainian IT Awards 2020, its objectivity and the correctness of determining the winners,” – comments Olena Volkova, partner of PwC.

In 2020, the IT Ukraine Association became the main organizer of the Ukrainian IT Awards. From 2017 to 2020, she co-organized the competition with SoftServe, the company that founded it in 2012. This year SoftServe, EPAM, Ubisoft, Intellias and Software Cowork have partnered in the nominations. The competition was held with the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine.

PwC Ukraine acted as an independent consultant to verify the vote count.

• Design & Development partner of the competition — company sense IT.
• Bank-partner Ukrainian IT Awards 2020 — UKRSIBBANK BNP Paribas Group.
• Office-Partner of the competition — Creative Quarter.
• Partner location  — PMHUB.
• HR-partner — Work.ua.
• Media partners: Business Magazine, #Bykvu.com.

Information Partners: 

Lviv ІТ Cluster, Kharkiv IT-cluster, IT Dnipro Community, Kyiv IT Cluster, IT cluster Івано-Франківськ, IT Association Vinnytsia, Тернопільський ІТ Кластер, European Business Association, American Chamber of Commerce, 1991 Open Data Incubator, Unit.City, Radartech, BazaIT, Startup Kyiv, IHub, Art of Business Analysis, Project Management Institute, ITVDN, CyberBionic Systematics, LAMPOVOE IT, Wtech, Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA), IT Network, Happy Monday, Cherkasy IT Cluster, Rivne IT cluster, Business Analysis Community, International Institute of Business Analysis, ЛУН, flatfy, Projector.