IT industry. Hi-Tech Park - alphabetical list of HTP resident companies When did you first come to Belarus

At the end of last week, Jan Kols, the head of the IT company Be-Mobile, which belongs to the largest cellular operator in Belgium, Proximus, arrived in Belarus. The company spent a long time looking for a contractor to develop its products and, after studying several countries, chose the Belarusian CactusSoft. An Onliner.by correspondent met with the head of Be-Mobile and his colleague Ines Mercart and found out what the Belgians think about the Belarusian IT industry.

Developer cost is not the main factor

- So, you were looking for developers in seven countries, correct?

Yes, that's right. Be-Mobile operates throughout Europe, as well as in the USA and Latin America - the business is growing strongly and we needed developers. Among Belgian companies, we did not find highly qualified people in a short time, so we started looking outside the country.

Three options were considered. The first is the south of Europe. This is Portugal, Spain, because there were economic crises there. The second is Eastern Europe: Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland and Belarus. And the third option is Brazil, since we have our office there, and the country is also in crisis, just like in southern Europe. As a result, we settled on Belarus. The country met our criteria, and it’s not just a matter of price. I want to emphasize that the cost of developers is not the main factor for us. What is important is the quality of education, discipline and reliability of people, reviews from other companies with which we work, as well as ease of work - language, time zone.

- Still, it’s hard to believe in some uniqueness of Belarusian developers...

In terms of education, Belarus is indeed at a very high level. We also believe that you have a “high-tech spirit”, which is not so pronounced, for example, in Poland. Yes, they also have a lot of IT companies, but this feeling is not there.

In addition, you have a lot of product companies with big names, for example MSQRD. We felt that Belarus has a good combination of education and cultural proximity. And don't forget the influence of the government: it has done an amazing job and has been able to stimulate IT companies.

Differences between Indians, Belarusians and Belgians

- What about developers from India and China?

A couple of years before we chose Belarus, we considered the possibility of working with India, Pakistan, and China. But, to be honest, everything is completely different there. Based on our experience and the stories of colleagues, the cultural differences are too great - this is the first thing. Secondly, there is a strong difference in communication, a time difference. Thirdly, direct contact with the team is important, understanding that you are working on the same thing. It's hard to explain, but with Indians and Chinese it's different.

- How exactly do differences in work manifest themselves?

You literally have to stay on top of them [Asian developers] to make sure they're doing everything right. They don’t give feedback until you decide to check the results yourself. Therefore, the result may be completely different from what the original task was. They never ask: “Am I doing everything right?” They just do it and don't think. This is the main difference between Indians and Belarusians. True, I’ll correct myself that I only work with CactusSoft, so I don’t know how things are with other companies. Belarusians also think during development and try to find the optimal solution.

Now let's talk about the difference between Belgians and Belarusians. In Belgium, people are more involved in product development, they are more entrepreneurial and proactive. If they think it should be different, they will tell you so right away.

Here I am the boss in my company, but people can tell me absolutely anything, and I will not take it badly - on the contrary, I encourage them to express their opinions. Otherwise, employees will become frustrated. And in Belarusian companies, the boss is the boss. It seems to me that you have more hierarchy and procedures. Although this happens here too: for example, in government agencies and banks everyone listens to the boss - after all, he must be right. Here, the size of the company matters more than any cultural aspects. That's why we prefer to work with medium-sized companies.

Why there won't be a Hi-Tech Park in Belgium

- Now we have begun to pay more attention to product companies rather than outsourcing companies. How are things going with this in Belgium?

The situation is a little similar, but what you said started earlier in Belgium. There are an abundance of venture funds and private capital here - they invest in companies developing products, web services, and SaaS solutions.

Then we have huge outsourcing companies that do not develop their own products, but provide services for traditional businesses - banks, telecom operators, government organizations that need to digitize their processes. And the salaries of such developers are really very high. Here I see great potential for Belarus: I think you need to do more projects for traditional businesses.

- Is there anything similar to the Hi-Tech Park in Belgium?

We have a couple of things that the Hi-Tech Park gives to your companies: grants, subsidies for innovative companies. But this is incomparable with the capabilities of HTP. For example, Be-Mobile is a technology company and we pay 34 percent taxes. Imagine: if an employee receives a thousand, the company will have to pay almost three thousand, taking into account taxes and social contributions.

It seems to me that the transfer of businesses of Russian and Ukrainian IT companies to Belarus is only a matter of time.

- The appearance of an analogue of the HTP in Belgium will not harm your economy?

Belgium has many things and mechanisms that do not exist in Belarus: for example, a very expensive social insurance system, companies and citizens pay high taxes. I don’t think that our government now has the opportunity to launch a High Technology Park with the same conditions as yours. It will cost too much. On the one hand, then more companies would immediately appear, but on the other hand, these missing taxes would have to be collected from someone else.

Impressions about Belarus

- When did you first come to Belarus?

Two years ago, when we were looking for a company suitable for us. It turned out to be very easy to find contact with potential partners, but after meeting CactusSoft we decided on it. Since then I’ve been here for what seems like the tenth time.

- What did you know about Belarus before your first visit here?

I knew about Belarus from a company in my field called Gurtam. We have already worked with her for about 4-5 years. What we do: we calculate information based on the GPS position of moving vehicles, and we have a contract with Gurtam - the company works in a similar field.

Just having met Gurtam, I was already impressed by the professionalism and ambition of your companies.

Our classic request for foreigners: share your general impressions of Belarus. Without touching business.

For us, Belarus was truly an unknown country, and this is very unfortunate. It is close: only 2.5 hours by plane, like from Brussels to Paris or Amsterdam. The mentality is somewhat similar to the Belgian one: we are also a small country, and therefore we have to be open - otherwise we won’t be able to build a business. The countries' populations are also comparable - Belgium has about 11 million people. You, like us, are open to foreigners, ready to learn, and know English very well compared to other Europeans. Seriously, even the French who live next door to the British speak much less English than Belarusians.

The Republic of Belarus is one of the countries where doing business in the IT sector has undeniable advantages. Such advantages include not only the benefits that are given residents of the Hi-Tech Park. But what is also important is the availability of a qualified workforce, in the selection of which HR specialists specializing in this field will be ready to help. This publication of our blog, as well as other publications, links to which you will find at the end of this publication, will help you learn everything about the procedure for creating an IT company in Belarus.

The creation of an OJSC will be of interest to large IT companies that subsequently intend to carry out an initial public offering. However, for representatives of medium-sized businesses aimed at growth, there is no point in immediately creating an OJSC. It is easier, if necessary, to carry out reorganization in the form of transformation.

What to pay attention to when developing a charter?

The second important non-procedural issue for registering an IT company in Belarus will be the development of a charter . Of course, it is worth noting here that there is no special charter for an IT company. However, there are a number of aspects that are worth considering.

Firstly, since the main value, along with employees, in an IT company is the results of labor - objects of intellectual property. It is worth developing in the charter a special regime for approving transactions on the alienation of intellectual property. After all, sometimes it is difficult to find out whether a particular transaction is large. But all transactions, except for large transactions and transactions involving affiliates, can be carried out by the sole executive body of the company (more often the director plays this role).

The charter may provide for a restriction for the manager to carry out any transactions with intellectual property objects that entail their alienation or the issuance of an exclusive license. Having established that such transactions can only be made with the consent of the general meeting of participants or the board of directors.

Also, the charter of an IT company often requires the use of such mechanisms as the disproportionality of the contribution to the authorized capital of the LLC to the share of the participant or the number of votes, as well as the share in profit. The use of these mechanisms also requires legal literacy, otherwise certain provisions of the charter may be considered contrary to the law. Since in the Republic of Belarus the institution of options is developed only within the framework of the HTP, mechanisms for protecting the rights of minority founders are also in demand.

They can be entered later, but it should be remembered that it may be more difficult to do this later. Thus, registration of changes to the charter is the prerogative of the head of the company. Which may not always have sufficient interest in this procedure.

What should be the size of the authorized capital?

For a limited liability company, the minimum authorized capital is not established. However, deciding on the size of the authorized capital cannot be made at random. A contribution to the authorized capital of a business company is the main mechanism for investing in a company at the initial stage of activity. It is especially important to correctly calculate the size of the authorized capital for a startup that does not yet have customers or secondary investors.

What about the loan agreement? So beloved by Belarusian business, it allows you to return the investments of the founders through tax-free loan repayment. Everything would be fine, but it is worth remembering that HTP may not evaluate an applicant with a negative balance sheet structure. Therefore, if registration of a company also involves joining the HTP, we advise you to make initial investments by contributing to the authorized capital of the company.

The founders of an IT company that does not plan to join the HTP after registration should remember that in the event of liquidation of a company with an outstanding loan, an object of taxation will be created as non-operating income. The tax authorities that have arisen will definitely need to either be satisfied or go into bankruptcy with the possibility of bringing the founder and former manager to subsidiary liability. into the newly created company is described in detail on this website.

Over the past few years, the Belarusian artificial intelligence market has grown several times. What role do the knowledge-intensive communities of Belarus play in the development of artificial intelligence and why are other countries willing to cooperate with its developers and buy projects?

In short, the recipe for success lies in serious government support, and in return the industry becomes an important column in the country's economy. In 2005, the High Technology Park (HTP) was founded in Belarus, which has since attracted about 400 residents involved in artificial intelligence and deep learning. For example, there are projects from the USA (including Silicon Valley), China, Cyprus, Norway, Israel, Great Britain, Austria, the Netherlands, France, and Russia.

The basis for this success was legislative and educational initiatives. For example, the decree of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko “On the development of the digital economy,” signed at the end of 2017, served as a “green light” for the development of blockchain technologies. Elements of British law were introduced and the types of activities of HTP residents were expanded: now they can vary from the creation of unmanned vehicles to support of education by IT companies.

The effect of the 2017 decree became immediately noticeable: already in the first half of 2018, the Park’s exports grew by a record 40%, excluding new companies. This is even more than in 2017, when for the first time in history exports exceeded $1 billion and grew by 25%.

In 2018, the Bulba Ventures fund was opened in Belarus, specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. It is noteworthy that one of its co-founders, Yuri Melnichek, previously invested in the startup AIMatter, which was acquired by Google in 2017. This year the fund invested in three projects: Friendly Data, Rocket Body and Wannaby. At the same time, retail startup Wannaby raised a significant amount of $2 million (in addition to Bulba Ventures, Haxus, a company specializing in computer vision and augmented reality for shopping, also took part in the round). The parental control application Nicola from FaceMetrics managed to raise a similar amount from the Belarusian fund VP Capital and the Russian Larnabel Ventures.

Computer vision is generally becoming a global trend. According to Wannaby co-founder Alexey Melnichok, Google’s purchase of the startup AIMatter and Facebook’s purchase of MSQRD symbolize the “heyday” of Belarusian AI technologies. After this, it became obvious that Belarusian artificial intelligence teams and products are in demand among large international corporations. The need for specialists has created new professions: data scientist, ML engineer (machine learning engineer), DL engineer (deep learning specialist). In addition to theoretical training, thematic events helped to develop these specialists: ODS and Big Data User Group, Datafest, AI Day, AI hackathons, Datathons, as well as student laboratories at IT companies, thanks to which the diffusion of knowledge within the community has significantly accelerated.

Export orientation

Belarusian service companies turned out to be more in demand in foreign markets than in domestic ones. Even before the “wave of AI technologies” began, large foreign companies began to establish their R&D offices in Belarus (Profitero, IHS Markit, Work Fusion, Yandex, Teqniksoft). It was at this time that the Belarusian IT community realized that it was much more profitable to sell its products and technologies, rather than good engineers for foreign projects. Thus, international outsourcing has become the main trend in the Belarusian market.

AI products developed in Belarus are used in healthcare, the automotive industry, and agriculture. The American startup Flo (an application for monitoring women's health) was founded by Belarusians and in two years attracted $18 million in investments from partners of the Mangrove Capital fund and the Flint Capital fund. The app is currently available in 20 languages ​​on iOS and Android, with 60% of users located in the US and Europe.

Engineers from MapData, the Minsk R&D office of MapBox, have achieved serious success: they use computer vision in the task of recognizing road conditions on a video stream. In the Minsk office of Yandex, they are developing solutions for self-driving cars, speech recognition, and search technologies. The startup OneSoil helps farmers increase the efficiency of using crop areas, plan agricultural activities and predict yields. To do this, the company uses neural networks, computer vision and machine learning algorithms that analyze satellite images. In one year, the company attracted $500,000 in investments from the Haxus, Bulba Ventures funds and investors Yuri Melnichko and Leo Lozner.

Perhaps the Belarusian IT sector can serve as an example of how the state can help startups to give them the opportunity to grow, as well as to get a return themselves.

It is important that I will write specifically about Minsk, and not about the whole of Belarus. What is written below is just my vision of the situation; perhaps I didn’t see everything somewhere.

If you have any questions, write in a personal message or in the comments to the post.

IT and job search

If you come from Moscow, no one looks at you as a “specialist from Moscow”, you will be at the same level as the rest. But! There is a clear shortage of qualified employees - this is a fact.

Another very important fact: the domestic market of Belarus is insignificant compared to the domestic market of Russia. This means that they are looking for a client here “over the hill” and are not spoiled by easy budgets. The level of production culture and products here is also high and modern. And the level of customer service, the level of ability to work at the proposal stage, etc. is higher than in Russia (apparently due to the search for clients in Europe).

Accordingly, English is almost the norm for local IT workers, so keep that in mind.

In my case, I found it first and then moved. I think this is the best option.

Legal side

1. You must rent any housing under a rental agreement. Almost everyone who rents out an apartment themselves does not mind doing it legally. You agree on a price, then go to the local (each district of the city has its own) housing department, take a standard contract form, sign it on both sides. There were no queues, the employee was aware of all the nuances and explained everything in quite detail.

A common practice is to write into the contract a lower rental price than it actually is. This is done to reduce the owner’s income tax; it is worth discussing such things in advance. Who will actually pay this tax?

2. Having received the rental agreement in your hands, you can officially find a job. In short, at this stage the employer signs an employment contract with you.

3. Next, you need to take a cardboard folder with the title “Case”, a couple of photographs, a copy of the rental agreement, your passport and employment contract and go to the local FMS office. I didn’t notice any queues here either. Everything went quickly, but I had to pay a fee of about $40.

4. After about 10 days, still at the same FMS, I received a small green piece of paper confirming my registration. It is given for a certain period, in my case - a year. I took a copy of this registration to work.
No one on the street ever asked for documents or registration. There are generally significantly fewer police officers here.
The only bonus of this registration was the opportunity to buy a “normal” local tariff from a cellular operator, instead of a “guest” tariff, which is not very profitable.

Why Minsk?

On the other hand, I didn’t want to go far; after all, relatives and friends are an important part of my life. And here Minsk looks like a very tempting idea. What is needed is almost the same mentality, but a little more European.

It’s hard to explain, on the one hand, everything here is very similar to my home, as if you went to a neighboring city in Russia, on the other hand, “the devil is in the details.”

People

In general, there is one word in the Belarusian language, the translation of which I cannot say word for word and no one has really been able to do this for me yet. This word is “pamyarkouny”. It sounds, of course, hackneyed, but the meaning of the word must be felt. And if you feel the meaning, it means you have already at least a little understood the peculiarities of Belarus.

People here lead a more measured and less hasty life. When I walk down the street, my speed is 15-20 percent higher than others (this is already happening now). I can’t say that I see more smiles, but I definitely see less sullenness in faces.

Language

You won’t have any problems if you don’t know the language, although many of the names are written in Belarusian. If you take a word without context, it is sometimes difficult to translate, but in context the meaning is always clear. I have never used a translator yet. Many Belarusians asked me if their language seems funny to them - for some reason I don’t. The language is like a language, but it’s still more similar to Ukrainian or Polish, it seems to me.

Prices

Although this is no longer about prices, I wanted to write about it. Trams, trolleybuses, computers at customs officers and much more are all locally produced. MAZ is working, farmers are coming to the market.

At first there was a complete blowout with prices. Now I'm getting used to it. At its simplest, you divide by 10,000 to get the price in US dollars. By the way, it’s very cool if your salary is tied to the dollar exchange rate in Belarus. Inflation is still noticeable here. For example, I save money and keep it in local currency.

Housing

But the “communal apartment” makes me happy. All utilities for a one-room apartment, including a telephone, cost about $35. The streets and courtyards are clean, garbage is taken out, in general, I haven’t encountered any problems here yet. I pay all my utilities via the Internet. It's convenient and simple here.

Prices for “buy” housing are comparable to those in the Moscow region. Why this is so and who buys it - I don’t know. They don’t give mortgages in Belarus now.

Public transport

About the metro. It probably happens rarely that there is no free space during peak hours. And the point is not that I occupy it, but that sometimes they still remain.

But standard Google Maps and Yandex Maps do not want to build routes for public transport in this city.
I often take a taxi, it’s cheap here and very convenient to call. I have never waited more than 5-10 minutes anywhere in the city.

Car traffic

I’ve almost never seen such a trick as securing a place in the yard, only next to institutions.

Bicycles

By the way, a very steep, modern bike path runs through the whole of Minsk from northwest to southeast. Approximately 30 km long along the Svisloch River. You can buy a bike just for this bike path.

Photos from the bike path

Literally after about 20 minutes of driving you will see a forest, a swamp, and grazing horses. At first, I couldn’t even believe that a big city lived somewhere just a couple of kilometers from me. Very picturesque places.

By the way, since the laws here are slightly different and there really is consumer protection, after purchasing a bicycle, the first maintenance for the bicycle is free.

But in this photo we are passing for a “bicycle license” that we received at one of the events.

And today, 20 minutes by bike from the center, in some fields I saw live fawns, peacefully rushing about their business. The place where this happened can be found at link.

Services

Probably comparable to provincial cities in Russia. Companies that start working on the service are immediately noticeable.
Typical story. I call a taxi, say that I’m standing at such and such a shopping center, she asks for the address, I give it. And I must say, this shopping center is a famous point in Minsk. The girl says in a very dissatisfied voice that this shopping center has a different address.

Yes, you are right, maybe I was wrong.
- First figure out where you are, then call - and he hangs up.

I smiled and called another taxi.

Internet

But home Internet is a disaster. It is almost twice as expensive here, dedicated lines are not available everywhere, ADSL is very popular. I think that this is also temporary. Still, there is some progress in this direction. Now for a 10 (which systematically decreases or falls) I pay about $25.

If you rent an apartment, find out about this right away. Some houses don’t even have ADSL and won’t have it. Moreover, this is not related to the year of construction.

Greenery

The parks here are truly islands of nature.

I haven’t figured out yet whether people actually litter less, or clean up more often, or maybe both.

Conclusion. Is it worth it or not?

P.S. A Few Noticed Facts

• There are very few red-haired people
• Few men have a beard
• Beggars and homeless people are not visible
• Fewer city madmen and freaks
• 4 hours by train to Vilnius
• There are significantly fewer non-working holidays here