Ukraine's
Pitch, From
Chocolate King
to
Cloudsourcing,
Of
Democracy
& Dollars
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, May
29 -- A pitch
was made to
Americans by
Central Park
on
May 29, under
the high
ceilings of
the Ukrainian
Institute on
79
Street in
Manhattan,
to outsource
IT or
information
technology
tasks
to Ukraine.
You
will only pay
for the time
the outsources
workers
actually work,
one
promoter said,
they must log
out before
they can use
Twitter or
Facebook. You
can support
Ukrainian
independence
and democracy.
And,
she added in a
more hushed
tone, you can
profit.
Who
are the
companies
already
outsourcing to
Ukraine? A
pamphlet
handed
out listed
Citibank,
Boeing,
PepsyCo
(mis-spelled)
and Reuters.
One
wag wondered
if that gave
the wire
service a
conflict of
interest in
their
reporting.
They already try to
censor other
media,
Inner City
Press reported
here.
The
pamphlet
included a
quote from
Barack Obama,
about
“assistance to
the government
of Ukraine so
it can
stabilize its
economy and
meet
the basic
needs of the
Ukrainian
people” -- and
another from
Congressman
Eliot Engel,
but not one
from Christine
Lagarde of the
International
Monetary Fund.
A graph shown
put 6%
of Ukraine's
IT
business in
Donetsk,
scene of
recent
fighting.
A
non-Ukrainian
executive,
Anthony Conte
of EPAM, was
brought up as
the
last speaker.
He talked
hopefully
about the
election of
Poroshenko
the Chocolate
King -- just
as the UN
offered
praise,
although in
the
hallways to
its own News
Center, here
-- and about
those EPAM has
employed in
Ukraine since
2005. They are
also in
Belarus.
When
the
speeches were
over, red
caviar and
pancakes were
served and the
networking
began. The
pamphlet said
“Support
Democracy,
Increase
Your Profits”
but the order
was perhaps
different.
Watch this
site.
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