
‘Ukrainian women are strong’
Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Valeriya Ionan is putting her entrepreneurial experience to good use at the country’s most dynamic and innovative ministry.
The Ministry of Digital Transformation is the youngest in Ukraine, founded in 2019 and staffed – since the very beginning – with young, former entrepreneurs who have been encouraged to bring private sector know-how and working practices into the public sector.
One of those is deputy minister Valeriya Ionan, who has been on board since the very beginning. She says that the ministry is currently “unique” in its flexibility and agility.
“We are results-oriented, which we took from our business past, and will always try to find fresh ideas,” she adds. “But at the same time, we understand the pain points of citizens or other ministries.”
Ionan’s own entrepreneurial path began at the age of 23 when she founded Quadrate 28, which helped SMEs and start-ups to grow by offering service teams on demand. “We grew to 500 clients and 120 staff with no investment,” she says.
Helping SMEs and start-ups remains a key part of Ionan’s role. The Ministry of Digital Transformation wants to help Ukraine become the most attractive ecosystem in Central and Eastern Europe for tech firms and was well on its way to doing so before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
Remarkably, while it has had to constantly pivot to adapt to the changing geopolitical climate, it has continued to develop tools for entrepreneurs and start-ups, as well as govtech know-how that it has begun exporting to other countries, such as the Diia public services app, recently shared with Estonia.
“And this is just the beginning,” says Ionan. “We are having conversations with around 15 countries who are interested in the application and other parts of our ecosystem.”
Importantly – in the context of the Russian invasion and the large numbers of internally displaced people – Ukrainians can use the Diia app to change their registered address, apply for and receive social support, and access aid, and other crucial services. A simplified war-time digital ID has also been created, available to all Diia users and recognised by local law enforcement.
Ukraine has also secured agreements with neighbouring countries to accept digital IDs in lieu of paper documents – invaluable for refugees who might have been unable to gather paper documents during hurried evacuations.
However, as Ionan is keen to point out, Diia is not just a super app and a portal, it’s an ecosystem specifically designed to make starting a business as easy as possible. “New businesses can be registered within minutes,” she adds.

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