Top Stories September 5: Former Soviet republics compete for IT talent

RELOCATION

The IT sector in Belarus lost 10,000 specialists from January through July 2022, the country’s government reported, with most of them relocating to Poland, Lithuania, Czech Republic and Georgia. The migration mostly includes middle- and senior-level specialists. [Source: Office Media]

Kyrgyzstan has simplified stay and labor rules for IT specialists from Russia, Armenia, Azerbajdzjan, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Moldova seeking to lure more high-income digital nomads. IT professionals can stay in the country without a residence registration and work without a labor permission. [Source: RBC]

FIGHT FOR TALENT

13 Kazakhstan private IT schools will receive grants for teaching a total of up to 3,000 students this year through the Tech Orda program funded by the government and state-run Astana Hub. Through 2025, 25,000 grants will be provided. [Source: Profit.kz]

Uzbekistan is establishing so-called “Technoparks for Youth” throughout the country to incentivize young people to go into engineering and support their  technical projects. A few technoparks, already created, support startups in 3D modeling, web programming, robotization, electronics and mechatronics. [Source: Yangi Uzbekiston]

More than 20 high schools of Kyrgyzstan have established business incubators for students’ startups. The country’s Prime Minister Akylbek Zhaparov said the country needs dozens of thousands of startups, citing data that only 10% of startups are successful. [Source: Economist.kg]

The number of vacancies in the Russian IT sector decreased by 25% during the last eight months, from 114,600 in January to 85,200 in August, while the number of applicants in the sector increased by 55%, from 211,100 in January to 327,000 in August, according to HeadHunter service. Experts attribute the shift to a significant drop in exports of IT services from Russia as well as the exodus of foreign employers and clients from Russia, among other factors.  [Source: RBC]

Russia’s biggest bank Sber launched a competition initiative to attract students to join the company. Players who got best results in digital, business or finance competitions are invited for an interview for an IT-internship at one of the bank’s departments. [Source: Spark]

STARTUP INVESTMENTS

US-based investment fund Vibranium VC, cofounded by Zamir Shukho and Kirill Timofeev invested in American startup Otis AI, which develops digital marketing tools for small- and medium-sized businesses. The fund liked “the company’s technologies, which helps SMBs grow and compete effectively, regardless of their size or ad budget”. [Source: Vibranium VC]

Investment fund Voskhod (Sunrise), part of the Interros Group, invested a total of $26 million in five Russian startups in various fields: oil field development solutions, unmanned “smart cafes”, holographic AR, a no-code robotization platform, and innovative biopolymer for water purification. [Source: RBC]

Russian express delivery service warehouses platform Darkstore Near Home attracted an undisclosed sum of investment from the Samolet Groupand private investors to expand its warehouses network and find new partners. Founded in 2018, the company leases mini-warehouses to retailers, marketplaces, and entrepreneurs who want to organize 30-60 minute delivery services for their goods. [Source: Inc. Russia]

The Russian EdTech sector sees fewer investments, but higher growth rates, especially in the digital professions segment, says Nikita Podlipskiy, the managing director of Ultimate Education, in his op-ed column with Rusven Telegram-channel. These trends are caused by the departure of many international investment funds, an increased role of the State, and a stricter selection of investments. [Source: Rusven]

CIS IT AND HI-TECH COOPERATION

The government of Uzbekistan is trying to get Belarusian companies to manufacture microchips, diodes, and cable and wiring in Uzbekistan. The governments of the countries have agreed to create a detailed roadmap on the initiative highlighting Uzbekistan’s desire to achieve feasible results. [Source: Sputnik]

Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan signed a government agreement to cooperate in the IT sphere. The countries are going to launch joint projects, share experiences in IT education and startup regulation and state policy approaches to digital issues. [Source: Profit.kz]

DIGITAL ADVERTISING

Advertisers’ interest in native advertising in chats and channels on Telegram doubled from January through June. In June, the number of users registered on Telegram’s advertising platform Telega.in was 80,029 compared to 42,883 in January, a trend driven by Telegram’s growing popularity. [Source: Kommersant]

Bloggers that distribute their video content through Rutube, the Russian video platform, will get 100% from their income generated by Rutube-related content through 2022. Typically income is split 50/50 between the platform and the creator, but Rutube decided to double the incentive for bloggers to produce more content and help them promote new channels. [Source: Habr]

INNOVATIONS

Yandex, Russian tech giant, launched its text generative neural network Balaboba in English. The user inputs a few words, and Balaboba further composes a text based on the same style and theme. [Source: Yandex]

The Russian Ministry of Digital Development is dropping a plan to buy smartphones using Russia-made OS Aurora for Russian civil servants because of a shortage of components. The funds initially allocated for this purpose will be directed to funding computing capabilities for government bodies. [Source: Interfax]

Russian retailer M.Video-Eldorado started selling computers using Russia-made Linux-based operating system RedOS and the R-7 Office suite. Makers of the products think that RedOS and R-7 Office are destined to become market leaders in their niches by the middle of 2023 as users have problems with access to Microsoft’s products. [Source: Kommersant]