The 2016 Black Sea SummIT

 BY MWDABBS 

First, a word of thanks to Anastasia Sleptsova and Angelіna Beznesyuk for arranging a press pass for me to the 2016 Black Sea SummIT. It is a yearly conference focusing on Innovation, Technology and Startups in Ukraine. The conference was sponsored by the Odessa City Council, Microsoft, Looksery, Lohika, HYS Enterprise, Beetroot, Infomir, Do It, and Unit-IS.

Video by Vladimir Bogatyrov featuring Odessa’s Mayor, Gennady Trukhanov, starting off the conference.

Held on the top floor of the Sady Pobedy shopping mall, probably the best venue available in Odessa, but not optimally fit for purpose. Still, significant improvements over last year’s conference were clear in five key areas. Those improvements deserve highlighting upfront:

1. A Startup Battle was conducted on Friday, September 9, providing more focused face time for startups. I was unable to attend, but if my memory is intact, last year Startups were sectioned off and had to compete with the Main (Inspire) Stage.
2. In their place, the Growth Stage seemed more focused on presentations useful to all businesses, especially startups. Adrian Pica, of Romania, delivered the first presentation, masterfully addressing how to pitch startups to media.
3. All presentations on the Main (Inspire) Stage were delivered in English. For the few observed exceptions, key portions were translated in English/Russian, as appropriate.
4. There appeared to be better vetting of speakers – no nonsense. Last year, overall speakers were good, with a couple of “questionables” sneaking in – one going on how his first success came after 70 failed startups. I’ll leave it at that.
5. More event sponsors and vendors, or so it appeared.

Kudos to the entire Black-Sea SummIT Team for delivering a very good conference!

It is appropriate to note, also, that a third stage, Innovation, was involved for the more technically inclined.

Three stages makes it difficult to cover everything – and I encountered several startups and individuals deserving full articles versus being mentioned in passing. I’ve been waiting for this conference as the primary basis to actively engage business and startups for OdessaTalk – with solid basis for numerous articles.

Additional coverage is likely to be provided by Ukraine Business Journal which will officially launch in October. Roman Kozlovsky, UBJ’s Correspondent for South Ukraine, covered the conference as well, and he had several associates from other venues – so there should be a variety of coverage available. Ukraine Business Journal is being launched by James Brooke, a 24 year veteran of the New York Times with very substantial experience across Eastern Europe.

The intention here is to prioritize full articles on each of the startups and individuals that I found most interesting, “upfront and center” in areas of common or special interest to readers; interspersed with coverage of as many participants in the Black Sea SummIT as can be mustered – for as long as it takes to do so.

Coming up, this will include:

1. SoftSeq.com – founded by Vladimir Garbuz – “Hacker-Proof your Software.” My #1 pick on what is needed MOST, NOW – not just in terms of what his company does, but the broader philosophy behind it – for Ukraine, for governments, for infrastructure, for businesses. Impressive all the way around.
2. Agrodrone.com.ua – represented by Mikhailo Gorlovosky, Sales Manager – Unmanned Aerial Systems for Agriculture, Industry and Security. An abundance of interest in Ukraine exists in areas of Agriculture and Tech, suffice this company is at the intersection of both.
3. SolarGaps.com – founded by Erik Evgeniy. Where solar panels for roofs are starting to heat up, here we have “Solar Blinds and Shades” from their web site, “SolarGaps blinds in three-room apartment with the windows facing south, will be able to produce up to 600 Wh per hour or about 4 kilowatts per day, which is 100 kWh per month.

There’ll also be coverage for Kiev’s DIYLab and a few of their promising startups, including B-EAR. Intention is to cover as many of the other vendors and startups as possible, but some headspace should also be given to several of the topics covered by several of the key speakers including:

1. Ruben Nieuwenhuis of StartUp Amsterdam and other startup initiatives on Developing a Startup/Scaleup City – the process of which is of special interest to Odessa for a variety of reasons.
2. Dr. Patrick Kramer of Digiwell.com on Human Upgrades – including things like implanted chips (conducted live on stage), cyborgs and the questions it presents. If you were born in England, but have parts installed from Germany, with software made in Ukraine, are “YOU” from three countries or one? The implications challenge the status quo… well, even more than is already the case.

And possibly others, suffice that if you attended the conference – I encourage you to contact me via our contact form or Facebook so we can get you a featured with a full article.

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