The representatives of the government, high education and software development companies have admitted that the establishment of an educational scientific and production complex “Silicon Valley”, the presentation of which took place at the National Technical University “Kharkov Polytechnical Institute” on the 16th of May 2008, is a serious step to the integration of interests of high education and IT-business.

Making a speech at the inauguration of the complex, Arsen Avakov, the Chairman of the Kharkov Region State Administration, identified “Silicon Valley” as an example of an effective method to combine the potential of high education and production.

«The complex is considered to be one of the first associations of high-tech companies and Ukrainian high educational institutions in the field of Information Technology. The “Silicon Valley” establishment represents the switch to an absolute new level of the relationship between production and education», – said A. Avakov.

«The Region State Administration supports this initiative of “Kharkov Polytechnical Institute” and “Telesens” company and will do everything possible to assist in expansion of such a kind of initiative in the other fields of science intensive production industry», – he emphasized.

Mikhail Godlevskiy, the Head of automated control systems department of “Kharkov Polytechnical Institute” noticed that with a help of this project all research studies of university staff and educational activities of the students can go well together with production activity without prejudice to their main occupation.

Alexander Pavlov, the Professor of The Kiev Polytechnical Institute, the Dean of information science and computer engineering, announced that the presentation gave evidence to the fact that because of real practical activities education and production have all chances to be drawn together. «Today we had a chance to see the most important thing – it is a deed. It is the first and a very serious approach towards the integration of education and production», – he said.

Eduard Rubin, the Director of “Telesens” company, informed that representing a co-founder and initiator of “Silicon Valley” project, the company “Telesens” intends to assist in practice with improvement of processes of education. He mentioned that all students and post-graduates, who are going to work in “Silicon Valley”, will have opportunities to take part in the most up-to-date and high-tech projects including the projects that the international group of companies TTI Telecom gives to Ukraine for development.

He announced as well that “Silicon Valley” is an open project, so all new participants are welcomed at any time. The educational scientific and production complex “Silicon Valley” is a joint project of the National Technical University “Kharkov Polytechnical Institute” and “Telesens” company, one of the biggest software development companies in CIS in the telecommunication field. The project is established in order to give opportunities for students and lecturers to take part in realization of real developments and business-projects without any interruption of their education and study and in such a way to add all necessary practical skills to their theoretical knowledge.

At the start stage there are already 50 new working places within the project. The agreement to establish the educational scientific and production complex “Silicon Valley” was signed by the National Technical University “Kharkov Polytechnical Institute” and “Telesens” in spring 2006. During two years all necessary state permits for the establishment of the complex were received and the office (250 m?) for location of “Silicon Valley” was prepared.

Eduard Rubin, the Director of “Telesens” represents the rightholder of the trademark “Silicon Valley” in Ukraine. It is well known that Silicon Valley in the USA is the biggest IT-business-park in the world. It was considered to be the symbol of the great jump in IT field. The participants of the educational scientific and production complex “Silicon Valley” expect that this brand will be associated in Ukraine with a big jump in the field of technical education.

Professor L. Tovazhnyanskiy, the Head of the National Technical University “Kharkov Polytechnical Institute”, V.Pasechnik, the Head of sub-faculty of The National Technical University “Lvovskaya politechnika” , B.Mendzebrovskiy, the Vice-president of IT-association in Ukraine, representatives of the following leading TTI companies of Ukraine: SoftServe Business Systems, Тelesens, NIX Solution, Validio, Hartap, Eclips SP, Team Dev, Programm Ace, DB Best Technologies, Stella Systems and others were present at the inauguration of the complex “Silicon Valley” as well.

After the presentation there was also the round-table discussion. During it a lot of representative of Ukrainian technical universities and software development companies proposed a lot of pieces of advice to The Ministry of Education concerning improvement of education in IT field.