Fewer people, more AI, and expensive energy. Three challenges that will decide the future of Ukraine

The world is being transformed by demographic changes, the technological revolution and the struggle for energy independence. Europe is losing a million workers every year, China is reaching its demographic peak, and artificial intelligence is dramatically changing business processes.

Ukraine faces these global challenges more acutely than other countries. What are the ways to overcome them and integrate into the community of civilized countries?

The Minister of Economy Oleksiy Sobolev, co-founder of SoftServe Taras Kitsmey, and playwright and chief director of the Left Bank Theater Tamara Trunova tried to answer these questions.

We publish the most interesting of their speeches during the Deloitte Forum "Conductors of Change".

Oleksiy Sobolev, Minister of Economy, Environment and Agriculture

The next 40 years will not be like the previous ones we have lived in.

Since 2016, every year Europe has been losing a million workers because they were simply not born 20-30 years ago.

The US is now at a demographic plateau [that will last] until the year 30 or so. After that, growth starts again by a couple of percent a year.

We are now passing the demographic peak of the labor force in China. And in three years' time, about 16 million workers will leave China every year.

In other words, in 2030 there will be a very clear difference, when China will need to attract more people and urbanize villages faster in order to avoid falling. At that time, the United States will simply grow, because there will be demographic tailwinds.

We need to understand what to do with our demographic situation. The world is being rebuilt, and it is not known how pension and economic systems will work in these conditions. We will all have to adapt.

I think the world of the future is really a world of opportunities because it is transforming. And how we build alliances, economic integration, with whom, with what speed and efficiency depends on us.

What is the purpose of the [European] bureaucracy? To unify markets. Europe needs a really big, unified market to be able to compete with China and the United States.

Of course, we are ready to defend everyone. They should pay us for this, our army, which makes Europe stronger.

We also need very deep cooperation in arms production. Because Europe has seen that it is not always safe to rely on the United States to produce its weapons.

We need to have a lot of cheap electricity in Europe. It is simply a vital necessity. Without it, we, as a region, will not be able to compete at all. Because cheap electricity, its sufficiency, directly correlates with GDP development and with the better well-being of all of us.

The innovation and efficiency of drones, including in terms of cost, can greatly help Europe and reduce defense spending. Having a higher level of security will generally increase the region's competitiveness.

We have been trying to deregulate for the last two years. But it is difficult to catch the moment that business really needs. Or if it is caught, it affects so many other stakeholders that it is very difficult to remove it.

Joining the EU will bring such useful [benefits] as joining a large market or a significant reduction in the cost of money. If there is a common monetary union, it will be an opportunity to work in euros and borrow in euros. This is a gigantic market for Ukraine, which we do not have at all.

Taras Kitsmey, co-founder of SoftServe

The world will be multipolar. It will include the United States, China, India, the EU, the UK, and perhaps other countries will emerge.

I think local conflicts will continue. But there will be no global war.

We will live in an era of very rapid development of science and technology. Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and energy technologies will blur the existing rules of the game step by step.

I think that every country will fight for its energy independence, for a kind of food independence and digital independence.

For Ukraine today, joining the European Union is an arch-strategic task. But joining the EU does not solve all the issues we face.

Today we have a very complex demographics. A lot of people have left Ukraine. And it will be very difficult to restore the economic independence that we want with only those people who remain in Ukraine.

Strategically, our task should be to bring back the people who left Ukraine. Either to bring back most of them or the most progressive ones. But this is not an easy task. People always return to the country with more opportunities and better prospects.

Ukraine should be like Dubai No. 2 in terms of attracting investors. We cannot build a fast economy without external investors.

Dubai is a beautiful country with a lot of oil. I know many people who have moved there, but they are not from the oil business. That is, they go to Dubai for something else. They go to Dubai for simplicity of regulation, for ease of work. We need to create something similar in Ukraine.

If one million is poured into Ukraine, the gross national product will increase by four million. It goes through four turns. And we have to bring in billions not by taxing, but by taxing the next three rounds of billions.

For Ukraine, energy independence means, first and foremost, renewable energy.

We need to further develop nuclear power and thermal power as a basic energy source. We also need to integrate and create alliances with Europe in terms of energy independence.

Over the past five years, artificial intelligence has been turning the world upside down. It has a profound impact on everything.

There are a number of specialties, even in our industry, that are disappearing. For example, testers.

Artificial intelligence will be implemented everywhere. Every business should look at how to apply artificial intelligence.

The agricultural sector in Ukraine is very well developed. And there are great chances or prerequisites that we will be the best in Europe and the world.

Tamara Trunova, chief director of the Theater on the Left Bank

How do I see the future? If you fantasize, hallucinate that it is possible, I see us finally mature. Culturally and artistically mature for the first time in [our] existence.

Historically, we have never outgrown the period of young adults, when we already have character but it is still bad, when we already have ambition but do not have enough experience to translate it into some creative product that can create new worlds.

I think that we will stop being ethnographic exotics, we will be so ambitious that we will not lean on someone else's history, we will have the courage to go to zero and start a Ukrainian culture.

What I see from my own observations from a creative point of view is that Europe is hunting us. And the projects that I had there, I didn't ask anyone for them, they came to me and invited me.

I don't really like to fantasize about the purpose of the invitation. Perhaps it was some kind of a sign. We understand what they are saying: we had a Ukrainian woman. But only in two countries were there more or less equal relations and an equal conversation and an attempt at dialogue.

Every creative institution wanted to implement some other plan at my expense. To push the Russians behind my back into my project. They wanted to make a project about friendship or the possibility of friendship in the future.

You find yourself face to face with a huge system. For example, with the Munich Opera, which employs 1300 people. And you are absolutely not backed up by anyone or anything, you have no one to call even for support.

I understand that we have fallen into an infantile state because we have been going through a crisis for a long time.

But we need to bring each other to our senses and find our own language of speaking about this world. And to offer an exclusive product, because we are people who are oversaturated with reality. We are carriers of war. We are its witnesses and we are its resistance. And for some reason we do not share this with the world.

I don't allow myself to think beyond tomorrow night. And this helps, because the plans then look very practical. And then the responsibility is very obvious and the results can be checked very quickly.

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