Headline April 04, 2018/ ''' BELARUS -WHISTLES- *BELLS* '''

''' BELARUS -WHISTLES- *BELLS* '''

BY ANY MEASURE, BELARUS PRODUCES top-level *technical talent*, a solid inheritance from its Soviet past.

OVER 30,000 TECHNOLOGY SPECIALISTS - work and sweat it out in Minsk, - a city of about two million people, many, many of them -

Have succeeded in creating master apps - that are now used by  more than a billion people in 193 countries, according to the local government - and getting. President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko to believe that -

The Tech industry could most easily became a magic wand to help him end the country's chronic dependency on Russia.

''CREATION of an I.T. STATE is our ambitious but reachable goal,'' Mr. Lukashenko said at a gathering of lawmakers and bureaucrats last summer.

''This will allow us to make Belarus even more modern and prosperous and will let Belarusians look into the future with confidence.''

Mr. Lukashenko, who once called the Internet ''a pile of garbage'', began to utter improbable words for a former manager of a collective farm -

About the need to develop artificial intelligence. driverless cars and blockchain technology, which allows multiple parties to keep shared digital records.

*His government has taken several steps to encourage the tech industry's development, like granting  visa-free-entry to citizens of 79 countries, including all Western states, when entering through the Minsk airport*.

Mr. Lukashenko also wants to lift restrictions on currency transfers to encourage venture financing for start-ups.

Belarus produces top-level technical talent, an inheritance from its Soviet past, said Arkady M. Dobkin, who immigrated to the United States in the 1990s and established a software company there.

Today, Mr. Dobkin is the chief executive of EPAM , which does programming for the world's leading tech companies and is considered one of the fastest growing public tech companies in the world.

EPAM's headquarters is in Newtown, Pa. but its main development hub is in Minsk, where more than  6,000 of its technology specialists work.

''I think it was the absence of oil that made Belarus do this,'' said Mr. Dobkin, 57.

''Here, universities produce more highly qualified specialists than the internal market needs.''

Many locals say the government's talk about growing as a tech hub is a comfortable distraction in a country that heavily depends on Russia for cut-rate fuel and political patronage.

Sergei Chaly, an outspoken economist and former government official, calls Belarus ''a dying country with bitcoins''.

Yevgeny Lipkovich, a popular blogger who made a career out of ridiculing Belarusian bureaucrats, said the only reason the tech industry had found some success in Belarus is that the government-

''Cannot seize people's brains.''

He joked: ''if they want to capture an I.T. company, what would they get, computers?''

Politics doesn't seem a big concern for many in the tech crowd, even if young political activists use group chats on call-and-messaging app Viber -made by an-

Israeli company whose development hub is in Minsk - to coordinate activities and plan rallies.

Mr. Lukashenko's son is a fan of World of Tanks, a multiplayer online game developed in Belarus in which people fight in tank battles.

With more than 200 million registered users across the world, it is one of the top 10 games in terms of of total digital revenue.

Tanks have an important cultural meaning for Belarus and other former Soviet states, where almost every family has an ancestor who fought in one.

''He plays tanks, but this is controlled,'' Mr. Lukashenko said of his son at a televised meeting with  schoolteachers.

''One hour for tanks, 1.5 hours for music,'' the president added, explaining how he controls his son's time spent on the game.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Parents, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW! - the World Students Society and Twitter - !E-WOW! - the Ecosystem 2011:


''' Wargaming-Dependency '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless