Impressions from the largest internet conference
On April 17, Kyiv hosted the largest conference for internet professionals for the fourth time. This year, iForum attracted approximately 5,000 visitors (last year, there were just over 3,000).
Traditionally, the event was divided into several parallel thematic tracks. In the first half of the day, attendees could attend tracks dedicated to business and online advertising, social media, and internet technologies. The second half of the event consisted of tracks on startups, online promotion, mobile apps, and, again, internet technologies.
At iForum, one could meet and listen to many well-known internet entrepreneurs, including Igor Ashmanov (Ashmanov and Partners), Sergey Petrenko (Yandex.Ukraine), Denis Dovgopoly (GrowthUp), Nikolay Mityushin (ABRT Fund), Slava Baransky (LifeHacker.ru), and others.
Opening of the conference
As per tradition, the Ukrainian Internet Forum was opened by Oleksandr Olshansky, President of Internet Invest Group. His presentation focused on intellectual property on the internet. Oleksandr emphasized that global intellectual property legislation is outdated and requires a radical overhaul.
Afterwards, to the surprise of the attendees, Ukrainian MPs Vitaliy Terentiyovych Korzh and Viktor Viktorovych Yanukovych Jr. spoke. Their speeches, in my opinion, were more of a promotional effort in advance of the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Vitaliy Korzh made every effort to prevent the adoption of laws tightening controls on online content. Yanukovych Jr. was more specific, promising to prohibit the closure of websites without a court order, to legally enshrine user rights, and to legalize online documents.
With these presentations, the official opening of iForum 2012 concluded, after which the audience went in streams to listen to the speakers.
Internet Business Stream
The most interesting for many listeners was the "Internet Business" stream.
The first speaker in the stream was Mohammed Gawdat, Google's vice president of emerging markets. His presentation, titled "This New World," discussed how the internet has changed people's lives and how it influences society today. Gawdat cited some fascinating figures. For example, in the early 2000s, approximately 80 billion apps were downloaded online. The figures also touched on the Android operating system. Mohammed compared the birth rate to the number of Android activations per day. The result was 500,000 births for 850,000 Androids daily. Interesting, right?
Speaking about trends, Gavdat cited the example of Sweden, where 6.3% of the country's GDP comes from online activity. In other countries, this figure fluctuates between 0.8% and 4.7%.
In addition to statistics, the speaker discussed the social impact of the internet. Mohammed spoke about the recent revolution in Egypt, which essentially began with user posts on Facebook.
Internet Technologies Stream
The "Internet Technologies" track proved more comfortable – it was less crowded and Wi-Fi was available. The main topics of the first half of the day were SaaS platforms, followed by a roundtable discussion on "SaaS: What It's Like to Be a Cog in Someone Else's Machine." Participants included Dmitry Intsin (oki-toki.ua), Alexander Opanasenko (megaplan.ru), Vladimir Tsap (SHALB), Anton Tumakov (MyAsterisk), and Andrey Khvetkevich (NIC.UA). The roundtable discussed various aspects of SaaS platforms, the target audiences of various platforms, the benefits of free service packages, and the distrust of Ukrainian companies compared to foreign ones.
Startups Section
Denis Dovgopoliy opened the "Startups" section. His five-minute presentation covered the topics the speakers had been prepared to cover. First up was Nikolai Mityushin (ABRT Fund), whose presentation was titled "A New Methodology for Building a Business Model for a Startup." He described in some detail his first company, Aelita Software, which brought the then-small team considerable startup experience. His presentation described a business model that evolved many times, ultimately leading to a positive outcome and a successful sale.
Next, it was interesting to listen to Slava Baransky. His presentation, titled "How to Protect a Startup from Corporate Infections," described numerous mistakes entrepreneurs make within a company. However, one key idea emerged from the entire presentation: "The simpler the project, both technically and from a design perspective, the better." The key, he said, is to remember the golden mean, which is best not to stray too far from—a project should be simple, but not shabby.
Also worth noting was Nikolai Savin (GrowthUp), who discussed the mistakes startups make when writing summary executions, using real-life examples. Nikolai discussed specific areas to consider when writing a summary execution letter. One of his slides read, "Art for art's sake." I suspect the misspelling of "art" was intentional, subtly implying a lack of literacy on the part of the startup founders.
Ultimately, I can say the event was a success. iForum will undoubtedly contribute to the development of many startuppers, who left inspired. And it's not so much what we took away from the conference; what matters is that the many speakers there are living proof that hard work and complete belief in what you're doing sooner or later bear tangible fruit.
text: Oleg Sobyanin
