This year, IT Arena celebrates its 10th anniversary. The conference brought together 3,364 participants. More than 100 experts in the fields of technology, innovation and business became IT Arena speakers, including Mykhailo Fedorov, Minister of Digital Transformation; Gauthier Vasser, a world-class specialist in business analysis, AI and Data Science with work experience in Silicon Valley; Svitlana Sikular, Vice President of AI Research at Gartner; Eveline Buchatskiy, Managing Partner at D3 Venture; Taras Kytsmey, Managing Director at SoftServe.
At the panel «Lviv to Palo Alto: How to cultivate the tech oasis in the city», Patrick Burt, who has been the mayor of Palo Alto, the economic center of Silicon Valley, three times, and Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyy discussed different important topics, moderated by Pavlo Sheremeta, founder of Kyiv Mohyla Business School (KMBS).
Andriy Moskalenko, First Deputy Mayor of Lviv, participated in the panel discussion “From Student Project to DeepTech Startup: Transforming Cities into Technology Hubs through Modern Research Centres”.
In IT Arena 2023, winners of the Startup Competition were selected, in which teams competed for a total prize fund of almost $500 thousand. Ten teams competed for the top prizes in two categories: traditional track and Defense-startups. Among the traditional startups, this year’s winners were:  1^st place – S. Lab (eco-packaging technology made of hemp and mushroom threads, which can potentially become a natural substitute for polystyrene); 2^nd place – NUMO (an application that helps people with attention deficit disorder to organize tasks); 3^rd place – Jetbeep (a mobile wallet platform).
The winners in the Defence start-ups category were:  1^st place – Himera (a system for communication and coordination of unit actions based on a secure digital tactical radio); 2^nd place – Zvook (a hardware and software system capable of detecting cruise missiles, helicopters, UAVs and enemy aircraft at low and medium altitudes by sound);  3^rd place – Falcons (software and hardware for national defense).
In addition, American entrepreneur Justin Ziff announced the launch of Green Flag Ventures, a fund that will invest in Ukrainian start-ups. Notably, IT Arena is an annual international technology event held in Lviv since 2014.