Aista as a company have many Ukrainian partners, I have personal friends in Kiev, and I have close Russian friends too. I literally could not care less of the “politics of Ukraine and Russia”, but I care about my friends and partners, and their well being. My head of development has family in Ukraine, and family in Russia. His father was from Ukraine and his mother from Russia. This is not a political article, it’s an article about my friends, our colleagues, our partners, and our family, and an attempt to do whatever I can to ease their suffering today.
We in Aista have already told our Ukrainian friends and partners that if they need to flee Ukraine, there’s always a place for them to stay in Cyprus. We have offered our entire office space up for anyone needing shelter for a period to flee Ukraine. So far our partners have mostly sent their employees home to work from home for security reasons for a while, and their office is not operating as normal, but they’re still operating at 100% of their capacity. Kiev of course is literally a “no go zone” today, but the people of Ukraine are doing their best to rough things out. Dozens of places have been setup in Cyprus where you can donate dry food to the people of Ukraine, and the food will be shipped to the needy people of Ukraine as soon as possible. I encourage all my friends to seek out such places and give whatever they have to give today.
This is not about politics, it’s about friends, colleagues, partners, and family!
However, another thing you can do if you have the opportunity, is to continue hiring Ukrainian resources. Ukraine has a lot of extremely skilled software developers, and outsourcing companies, and continuing hiring Ukrainian resources, and/or outsourcing jobs to Ukraine is probably the best thing you can do to help Ukraine today. So far one of our partners just outside of Kiev has not lost a single hour of work with any of their 50+ employees, and they are still operating at 100% of their capacity, even though obviously things are hard, and they had to send their employees home yesterday.
If you want to help Ukraine today, and you’ve got no idea where to start, my suggestion to you is to start out by hiring a Ukrainian. Ukrainians in general are extremely skilled, with high work motivation, willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done - So as you’re helping Ukraine by hiring software developers, and/or companies and resources from Ukraine, you also paradoxically help yourself and your company. This is probably the most important thing you can do as of today. I also want to emphasise that I have dozens of Russian friends, and most of them are just as afraid and disgusted by what happened in Ukraine the last couple of days as me and you. Don’t let them divide us please. We’re all living in the same village, and some of our villagers are Norwegians, others are Cypriots, some are Ukrainians, and others again are Russians. But most of these, regardless of where they come from are our villagers, it just so happens to be that it’s the Ukrainian part of our village that needs our help today, and the best way you can help Ukraine today is actually to hire a Ukrainian, and/or outsource your projects to Ukrainian companies. If you don’t know where to start, I can help you - We’ve got some extremely skilled partners in Ukraine working with software development helping companies all over the world with their software development efforts, and I don’t make a single dime on referrals.
The world is a village, and today it’s our Ukrainian neighbours that needs our help. Tomorrow it might be you!
