GARY, Indiana (CI Ukraine) – Rather than waiting for US tech CEOs to come to Ukraine, Ukraine’s leading tech owner and CEO, Boosteroid’s Ivan Shvaichenko, went to the United States to launch its US headquarters and future $1 billion-plus NASDAQ listing of the world’s third largest cloud game hosting company after Santa Clara, California-based GE Force of Nvidia [NASDAQ: NVDA] and XCloud of Microsoft [NASDAQ: MSFT].
But Boosteroid’s Shvaichenko first stop in the United States was not a meeting with Silicon Valley tycoons but to attend a Sunday service at the historic African American church, St. John Baptist Church of Rev. Re Robinson in Gary, Indiana, and a discussion of how Ukraine-US cross-border investment can be used to transform his native city of Kharkiv and all but abandoned city of Gary, Indiana.
[Boosteroid founder and CEO Ivan Shvaichenko and General Counsel Vlad Kosmin filmed by Capitol Intelligence/CI Ukraine using CI Glass attracting the interest of Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and attending church service by Saint John the Baptist Rev. RE Robinson with host Gary Crusader editor and publisher Dorothy R. Leavell and later meeting with Gary, Indiana mayor designate Eddie Melton, Indiana State Representative Vernon Smith, Gary NAACP president Steve Mays on Boosteroid’s plan to set-up data centers and a IT/gaming developer boot camp/academy in Gary, Indiana based on their operations in Kharkiv, Ukraine on August 13, 2023]
Hosted by the publisher of the Gary and Chicago Crusader newspapers, Dorothy Leavell, Shvaichenko discussed how Boosteroid can establish a gaming and software development bootcamp/academy in Gary as it is doing in war ravaged Kharkiv and help Gary fulfill its ambition to become the Midwest hub for cloud hosting data centers.
Gary mayor designate Eddie Melton noted that city lies on top of one of the largest dark fiber-optic cable networks in the United States and its proximity (24 miles/39km) to America’s second city, Chicago. Boosteroid’s Shvaichenko and his team were in the United States scouting locations for its US headquarters and finalize deals to acquire $20 million in servers from the likes of Houston, Texas-based Hewlett Packard Entreprise and others to boost its current six data centers in the United States.
Boosteroid’s work in Gary already won the praise of both US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Indiana governor Eric Holcomb, with Holcomb asking that the Indiana’s Economic Development Corporation immediately reach out to Boosteriod on how they can facilitate investment in one of the most economically depressed cities in the United States.
Gary, once named America’s “City of the Century” and Indiana’s second city when it was a major industrial center after being founded by US Steel Chairman Judge Elbert H. Gary and banking giant J.P. Morgan in 1906 — now lies mainly abandoned following the precipitous decline of US Steel in 1970s and subsequent “white flight” after violent race riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr on April 4, 1968.
Gary is now better known for being the birthplace of Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five.
[Vista Equity Partners founder and Chairperson Robert F. Smith speaks to Capitol Intelligence/CI Ukraine using CI Glass on how he has been supporting Ukraine for decades and is making new investments into the country while attending the 60th Anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr’s March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial on August 26, 2023]
Just as the Ukraine business owner and CEO is looking at overlooked areas of America for opportunities, one of the biggest technology investors in the United States, Austin, Texas-based Vista Equity Partner founder and CEO Robert F. Smith, said he has been investing in Ukraine for years and is increasing the $100 billion PE/VC fund exposure to the country.
Other CEOs showing corporate leadership regarding their commitment to Ukraine is Hiroshi Mikitani, the founder and CEO of Japan’s $9 billion tech concern Rakuten, who travelled to Kyiv to illustrate the company’s commitment to Ukraine thought its secure Viber messaging app.
UK magic circle law firm, Freshfield, has also shown leadership by offering Ukraine corporates pro bono legal services as part of its work to set-up a Ukraine development fund. Freshfield immediately closed its Moscow office and fired their Russian clients after the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.
Charles Woodburn, the CEO of UK defense conglomerate BAE Systems, also travelled to Ukraine to mark the signing of an agreement to set-up a Ukrainian defense company, a move that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky would like to see replicated by US defense giants Lockheed Martin CEO James D. Taiclet, L3Harris CEO Chris Kubasik and Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy J. Warden.
Smith’s bullish investment sentiment for Ukraine –justified by the country’s well-earned reputation for being one the leading technology and software development centers in the world – is the opposite of the pro-China, anti-Ukraine sentiments of Tesla’s founder Elon Musk, Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang and Palantir chairman, Peter Thiel.
Nvidia is facing allegations in Ukraine that the company bent to Russian pressure at the outset of the Russian invasion by blocking the shipment of graphic cards to Ukrainian companies. Nvidia only shut down its Russian operations on October 3, 2022, some seven months after the Russian invasion.
Nvidia spokesman Ken Brown, wearing a US-Ukraine lapel, declined comment when asked about the serious charge leveled against Nvidia by Ukraine technology companies.
[Tesla and SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang and META founder and cEO Mark Zukerberg, Palantir CEO Alex Carp and Microsoft founder Billl Gates filmed by Capitol Intelligence/CI Ukraine using CI Glass at closed door AI Insight Forum organized by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the Russell Senate Building in Washington DC on September 13, 2023]
Even as President Volodymyr Zelensky travels to meet President Joe Biden and Congressional leadership this week to unblock the supply of critical ATACMS long range missiles and shortening the time table for F-16 deliveries, Ukraine’s private sector owners and CEOs are doing everything in their power to continue to attract western private sector investment to sustain Ukraine during wartime but also kickstart the $500 billion reconstruction of the country once the war is over and ahead of the joining the European Union in 2025.
The Chicago Skyway — the $2 billion toll-bridge connecting Gary and Chicago owned and operated by Australia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, Macquarie, and Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan — has already a bridge that can raise the fortunes of Gary and Ukraine.
The Chicago Skyway, the first and still the largest privatization of a state-owned asset in the continental United States, is of extreme interest to Ukraine as it lobbies other global infrastructure leaders such as Macquarie; the Benetton family Mundys (ex-Atlantia) infrastructure venture with Blackstone; and Singapore Temasek to takeover Ukrainian state-owned airports and highways.
Ukraine would like global infrastructure group to immediately takeover critical state assets, especially because the availability of billions of dollars in project financing including political and war risk insurance available from the US International Development Finance Corporation (US DFC), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC).
The Skyway than spans Indiana and Illinois directly connects Holcomb with billionaire Illinois governor JB Pritzker and his sister, former US Commerce Secretary and recently named presidential envoy for Ukraine’s economic recovery, Penny Pritzker.
[Kharkiv region (oblast) chairwoman Tatyana Yegorova-Lutsenko speaks with Capitol Intelligence/CI Ukraine using CI Glass on her talks with Ohio governor Mike DeWine to forge partnership agreement between the region of Kharkiv and the State of Ohio following the Sister City partnership between Kharkiv and Cincinnati, Ohio in Kiev on June 8, 2023]
But Shvaichenko’s journey to Gary also built a profoundly important bridge between the suffering Ukraine people fighting for representative democracy and the Black American community who have always led in the struggle for freedom and the equal protection of rights guaranteed by the US Constitution.
During the church service in Gary there was no need to explain the suffering and pain inflicted on Ukraine by Russia’s barbaric war while all those were reminded of Martin Luther King Jr words: “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
By PK Semler in Gary, Indiana, Washington, DC and Kharkiv, Ukraine. For more information, email pks@capitolintelgroup.com
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