Press Releases

More than 300 attendees from the IT industry had the chance to participate at the two-day Cyprus IT Forum 2019, which was organized for the second consecutive year in Cyprus, on 20-21 May 2019, at the Parklane Resort and Spa in Lemesos. The success of the convention was marked by a large attendance and great interest by the attendees who gathered together to discuss business challenges and global IT opportunities.

At the convention’s opening ceremony, Mr Kyriacos Kokkinos, Chairman of Research and Innovation Foundation delivered a speech, on behalf of the President of the Republic of Cyprus, expressing the Government’s commitment for providing the necessary 5G infrastructure and at the same time assuring participants that the Government acknowledges the importance of the IT industry and is fully committed to a wider goal of turning Cyprus into Europe’s fastest growing IT hub.

Answering various participants’ questions, Mr Kokkinos characterized the island’s current internet speed as “embarrassing” and highlighted that he will use his newly acquired position as Chairman of Research and Innovation Foundation to, not only address this problem, but to promote the development of 5G infrastructure.

At the same time, Ms Demetra Kalogerou, Chairman of Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission analyzed Cyprus’ law and regulations with regards to the IT industry and underlined that the Commission’s target is to transform Cyprus into a safe and friendly environment for any business to operate and thrive.

During the two-day convention, participants had the chance to discuss business opportunities created by Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Computer vision, Virtual reality. Guests also participated in workshops that dealt with issues like Human Resource management, GDPR data regulation practices, Anti money laundering and international business development.

In a speech about doing business in Cyprus, Mr Aleksej Gubarev, Co-founder of Haxus, a startup accelerator firm, said: “I live in Cyprus for seventeen years and I’ve experienced the huge growth of the IT community during the last four years. It’s a pleasure to see that now there are events like CITF which bring new people together to share innovative ideas and unlock new business opportunities”.

During keynote presentations of the second day, Mr Timur Bekmambetov, a Hollywood filmmaker and investor talked about his new project, “Screenlife”. It's a storytelling technique based around showing the events from the perspective of a laptop or smartphone screen. It makes sense, as nowadays looking at screens takes up the majority of our time. Answering the question about his business in Cyprus, Mr Bekmambetov said that his company has been running an asset operation and content distribution in Nicosia for seven years. He also commented on the Government initiative of supporting movie production. He considers it a good opportunity for smaller projects, but he still thinks Cyprus lacks the infrastructure needed for serious movie production.

Finally, Mr Nikita Daniels, Director of Cyprus IT Forum expressed his gratitude towards all convention’s sponsors, Ecommpay, Nexters Global, Parimatch, Wise Wolves Group and Allea Group and added that with their support, the CITF team was able to bring together global IT visionaries and influential local businessmen in one of the island’s best hotels. “It was a pleasure,” said Mr Daniels, “to meet so many friends and to make new ones. Finally, a large thank you goes to all the members of the Cyprus IT community for supporting this cause with their participation. See you all next year.”

For further information on the Forum please visit https://cyprusitforum.com/en

(MG)