Yuliia Chernetzka and Georgiy Vaydanych did an internship with Boreal Light in Berlin and developed an idea for a mobile, hybrid water purification plant for drinking water. “Over those eleven weeks, we built very good contacts with German business organisations and can now draw on different networks, including the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, the Berlin Chamber of Industry and Commerce and Berlin Partner. We had the feeling that we are building bridges between German companies and the Ukrainian business community”, says Georgiy Vaydanych, summarising his experience of the last few months.
Another project, which is about entering the Ukrainian castings market, is being planned by Maksym Grytsenko and his host company Südguss in Saxony. Castings are in great demand in a country whose railway system, water supply and energy system, including the gas and oil sectors, have been severely damaged.
For the German host companies, participating in the special initiative has been about more than just social responsibility: they have also identified ideas for future cooperation with Ukrainian companies. Sums up Silvio von Krüchten, CEO of i-ways: “We were able to cooperate with our two participants on an equal footing. It was obvious that both are experienced managers.” He saw offering the internship as an investment into the future that will allow him to position himself as a first mover on the Ukrainian market. Other German companies have also gained valuable new insights into the Ukrainian business environment. In several cases, the internships have resulted in new contacts with Ukrainian companies. The sector network for optical technologies and microsystems technology Optec Berlin-Brandenburg (OpTecBB), for instance, already was part of an international network, but the Ukrainian participant was able to add to that network in a meaningful way by supporting systematic contacts with the Ukrainian photonics cluster.