Ukraine’s Smart Cities: A Strategic Development

Ukraine has an opportunity to convert its outdated, neglected and abused urban infrastructure into the most advanced smart cities in the world. A couple of facts show the size of this opportunity:

• Ukraine has 459 cities, 37 of which have a population of 100K to 500K.
• Under decentralization, 1,029 additional community regions were created.

If you’ve visited Ukraine and ventured beyond Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Odessa, and Dnipro, you’ve been struck by the stark difference in quality of life between a small city 100 kilometers outside the capital and Kyiv or the other major cities. Ukraine’s big cities all need their share of tender loving care, but the small and midsized cities need a complete teardown.  Mismanagement in Soviet times, chronic underfunding, and centralized red tape impeding repair and upkeep, and have resulted in urban infrastructure crumbling beyond the point of fixing.

So how do you rebbuild an urban center that needs to be stripped to the bone and completely rebuilt?

1. Choose an economic industrial base.
2. Launch an innovation and startup ecosystem.
3. Provide healthcare for all citizens of the municipality.
4. Build a smart city.

Easy to say, I know. 

It will take numerous sessions of brainstorming among a municipality’s citizens, government, and business leaders to decide on the strategic industries that will be their economic engine. But most will have three to five key sectors of economic strength. Once these are identified, land can be rezoned to establish an industrial park exclusively for these industries.

Launching an innovation and startup ecosystem might sound like pie-in-the-sky optimism, but it’s critical for long-term growth: 

• Start-ups provide a flow of innovative ideas to established companies, keeping them competitive. 
• Established companies provide start-ups with distribution channels, investment, and working capital, or can simply buy them outright.
• For start-ups, established companies serve as an early test lab of their product or services, requiring them to iterate based on the knowledge and experience of their corporate “mentors” before launching in the market.
• Lastly, established companies can spin-off their “moon-shot” projects into start-ups, reversing the direction of innovation. 

A strategic policy would be to require every business that operates in the industrial park to mentor one or startups.

And why is healthcare an essential step? Not one international corporation or financier will invest any type of resource without a guarantee of quality healthcare for their employees. 

The first three steps can provide a foundation of economic activity that tips the scale into self-sustainable economic growth. And what about the power, sewers, roads, connectivity and the rest needed to sustain an industrial park? Leapfrog to next-gen infrastructure. Think smart roads that charge your electrical vehicle, ecologically sustainable buildings, green power and energy efficiency. Give it ten years to bloom and watch a smart democratic city rise on top of the Soviet legacy.

Still not convincced?

I have one more suggestion. Ignite the whole project by obtaining a World Trade Center license for the city from the World Trade Centers Association (www.wtca.org). Why? Three reasons:

• City (brand) recognition. It would take tens of millions of dollars and 5+ years for a midsized Ukrainian city to become known to global audiences. With a WTC license, the business elite of 90 countries knows about the city instantly.
• Three letters, “WTC,” before the name of a city signifies that it is open for international business and investors. 
• Last, but most important fact, the WTC global brand is a brand of TRUST.  As that famous MasterCard commercial used to say: “It’s priceless.” 

This is what WTC Kyiv is planning to do for Kyiv. So if you’re still in doubt, I have only one more suggestion—just watch us!

The article is also available in Ukrainian in the business media The Page.

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