IT COMMUNITY DEVELOPS USEFUL DIGITAL SOLUTIONS FOR SOCIETY’S PROGRESS

Ten companies in the IT sector are receiving financial support in order to develop digital solutions necessary for our country.Selected through an open callunder the “Private Sector Engagement Initiatives” of the TEKWILL project, private institutions have committed to generating useful solutions that contribute to the training of specialists in the field, accelerate the development of regional entrepreneurship, improve the quality of public services, connecting the IT field with other non-IT sectors in the country, facilitating business activity, or just simplifying the lives of citizens. These solutions would be implemented by the end of 2021 with the total development costs valuing at $585,000 and 40% being covered by the TEKWILL project with the support of its development partners USAID and Sweden.

What problems will these digital solutions solve?

1. Software for business simulators – involves the creation of software simulators and promoting their widespread use in the educational process of universities in the country. According to the project team, the simulators will help students practice decision-making skills in terms of a virtual environment similar to the real-world market. In total, about 2,000 students and about 300 teachers will benefit from the project.

2.TenderWell – is a collaborative tool to improve project acquisition capabilities. An innovative customer relationship management software that allows companies to organize their work when bidding and improve their current customer relationships. The app will allow organizations to manage bidding opportunities, track them faster, and plan strategies to position themselves ahead of competitors. Based on the project, ten specialists working in the field will be trained and another ten free copies of software will be offered to the companies in which it operates.

3. GreenBill – is a digital application that makes the process of paying regular invoices convenient with electronic, paperless invoices for all parties involved including service providers, payment operators, and payers. The digital solution is especially useful for the financial and managerial records of an institution. It incorporates a range of payment services for all utilities from notifications to payments and settlements. Also, according to the company, changing the procedures for processing information (from analog to digital) will involve redirecting training and professional needs of employees. This would produce a change in the needed professional skills of employees and increase the interest in the IT field of young candidates for positions in various fields.

4. StudiiEdu – an online education platform for students and teachers, but also for corporate education. The platform will simplify the operational process of online course management and will turn course authors into facilitators. In this way, through online courses, private companies will be able to train employees more quickly in the training process, international organizations or local associations that have already created courses could provide access to a large number of users, and educational institutions will be able to add online courses for combined education.

5. MoldovaDiasporaPayments – the project aims to provide the Moldovan diaspora with the possibility to pay its bills in the country where they are located. The application allows the client to receive and pay invoices online fromtheir personal office on mobile or web platforms. The service will be promoted in the countries with the largest number of Moldovan citizens abroad. In the first year after its launch, developers estimate that about 12,000 people will benefit from the initiative.

6. Scoring for business model – provides an innovative way to estimate the degree of risk of a loaneven if the company has no activity report or balance sheet and has only one day since its official registration. The developer will use technological tools to generate the company’s risk rating not only based on the company’s financial figures, but also on the basis of each founder, its ability to pay, credit history, and the correlation of this data to model the risk of the newly founded company. The solution is aimed at young entrepreneurs in the country.

7. Learning portal for Moldovan citizens”Public digital services” – a study portal for the country’s citizens. The e-learning platform aims to develop the professional skills of users in various fields. Whether they want to progress professionally, change careers, develop new skills, or simply learn something new, the “Public Digital Services” platform will be the starting point. In the first year after its launch, the platform will contain ten courses, which will benefit about 8,000 users.

8. Digital training centers for women – provides for the creation of three training centers in different regions of the country. Nine NGO facilitators will train 500 women, aged between 18 and 45, in the efficient use of information technologies to launch and promote their own business. The initiative will motivate and mobilize women to strengthen their sense of self-respect and to play an important role in their community or professional life.

9. Liquid Democracy Voting System – provides for the development of a voting system based on Blockchain technology. The beneficiaries of the project are professional associations, political parties, local and regional authorities, and NGOs. According to the initiative, this new form of collective decision-making will give voters full control over the decision-making process. Voters will be able to vote directly on certain issues or may delegate their votes to selected representatives who will vote on behalf of voters.

10. Monitoring tool based on IoT- aims to implement a monitoring tool based on IoTtechnology, which allows remote reception of information about the status of the technological process and alerts. Based on the information received, the customer can remotely make changes to the process. This will improvelabour productivity and reduce production costs and losses. The beneficiaries are agricultural entrepreneurs.

“Private Sector Engagement Initiative”

The “Private Sector Engagement Initiative” is being developed as part of the TEKWILL Project, implemented by the National Association of ICT Companies with the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development and Sweden. Tekwill was created in 2017 as the Center of Excellence of the ICT sector in Moldova, with the main goal of aligning the field with the requirements of the 21st century. Aiming to contribute to increasing the competitiveness of the IT industry and other strategic sectors of the economy, the center has expanded its current areas of activity, becoming in 2019 a complex project at national level. The basic objective of the TEKWILL Project, as a platform dedicated to the progress of the IT sector, is to ensure a major impact on the economic development of the country by improving the entrepreneurial and educational capacities of society members, but also the research and development potential of higher education institutions, in line with the demand on the IT market.