As part of the presidential project "A State in a Smartphone", Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov and Country Manager of Microsoft in Ukraine Jan Peter De Jong signed a Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation. The signing took place in the Office of the President of Ukraine.
Mykhailo Fedorov noted that this document is important for the development of the digital economy and thanked the company for paying special attention to the Ukrainian market.
"Potential interaction with Microsoft is a digital leap for our country… One of the priority goals of our ministry is to digitize all government services in two and a half years. Infrastructurally, this cannot be done without a data center where we can store our data. We pay special attention to data storage in our country and do not want sensitive data to be stored in other countries," Mykhailo Fedorov stressed.
He noted that cooperation with Microsoft will help Ukraine achieve its ambitious goal of digitizing all public services.
The memorandum envisages the creation of the cloud infrastructure Microsoft Azure, Office 365, etc. on the territory of Ukraine.
"Microsoft Azure program includes the development of cloud services in the amount of more than $ 500 million. Now we are considering the possibility of moving the services "Diia. 2.0" to Azure Microsoft cloud services," the Deputy Prime Minister said.
In cooperation with Microsoft, it is planned to attract more than 100,000 new experienced IT professionals to the program in the next three years.
According to Mykhailo Fedorov, the Ministry of Digital Transformation aims to provide all the necessary conditions for the activities and development of technology companies in our country.
The Country Manager of Microsoft in Ukraine noted the potential of the Ukrainian state and specialists.
"The purpose of the memorandum is to use this potential to make Ukraine a better place to live and help Ukrainian companies become more competitive by ensuring the availability of the latest technologies," he said.
Jan Peter De Jong noted that modern technologies open up great opportunities, in particular for the state in providing services to citizens. According to him, Microsoft has experience in working with government agencies around the world.
Deputy Head of the Office of the President Yulia Kovaliv commended the signing of the memorandum, reminding that the presidential program "A State in a Smartphone" pays much attention to the creation of a digital state, so today's event will be a big step in this direction.
She noted that the Ukrainian IT sector has been actively developing in recent years, and the state is focusing its efforts on helping and supporting successful IT companies.
"Building a digital economy is impossible without the active role of government institutions and the services they provide. The initiative of the Ministry of Digital Transformation and Microsoft, which will begin its implementation today, will give a very big impetus to the transition and digitization of all public services to a whole new technological level. And this cooperation program will include not only more accessible, fast and high-quality services for citizens and businesses, but also an educational unit: in the framework of cooperation we will teach tens of thousands of young Ukrainians to become successful entrepreneurs, IT specialists, build a great digital culture and carry out transformation in Ukraine,” Yulia Kovaliv emphasized.