Sergey Karas

Moscow, Russia

VP of Global Strategy for Luxoft - a global sorware developer

Thank goodness IT companies have finally woken up to the UK IT skills problem. IT companies’ failure thus far, to capture the imagination of the UK’s young people has seen youth turn away in their droves to softer subjects like media studies. This insidious trend has swept the UK leaving it far behind other countries like Russia.

As someone who knows of the past glory of Britain’s engineering and technical mastery, its dwindling talent base is disheartening. Also, while Luxoft benefits from the crisis by supplying its talent overseas, I admire Great Britain and would relish a revival in its technical output, even against my own business interests

This partnership represents the beginning of something I have advocated for years – the development of close partnerships with schools and universities, akin to our own ‘Luxoft University’, should actually interest kids in IT before they’re turned off for good. This early spark is all that’s needed and it will be a great thing for the UK and the entire IT industry.