Knowledge and experience of Ukrainian engineers coupled with modern technologies, allow Ukraine to be inventive and create varied unmanned systems, even though insufficient funding poses a problem.

This was the key message of Dmytro Shymkiv, entrepreneur and investor at the 17^th Annual Kyiv Security Forum “UA: UNITE AGAIN TO DEFEAT THE GLOBAL AGGRESSOR”, organized by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk Foundation “Open Ukraine”.

“We must become smarter and more inventive. A great many our engineers were drafted into the army. Masses of knowledge and experience, technologies that evolve constantly, artificial intelligence (AI), processing - all these allow us to create varied unmanned systems,” said Dmytro Shymkiv.

According to him, the said technologies and iron will of Ukrainians work in unison.

“Engineers develop gadgets, we get feedback and deploy products. Over the past 6 months, we have changed 5 or 6 different modules, and I fail to name countries considered to be more technologically advanced than Ukraine,” said the entrepreneur.

At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that Ukraine lacks funding in this area.

“We need to enhance and step-up drone production, we need to purchase them, increase their capabilities. We have created manufacturers’ association in Ukraine, and Ukrainian companies now use up to 30%-40% of the potential, and this means that some 60% of the production capacities Ukraine’s companies possess remain idle … The question is: do we have enough funding to use these capacities?,” asked Dmytro Shymkiv.

The Kyiv Security Forum, organized by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s Open Ukraine Foundation, is the main platform in Ukraine to discuss issues of war and peace, national and global security.