“When we stop educating ourselves, we stop growing”, said Valery Vavilov – the CEO of Bitfury, the world’s leading emerging technologies company, which he co-founded in 2011. Valery is an IT expert with more than 20 years of experience in the industry, and also an alumnus of Transport and Telecommunication Institute (TSI). He obtained his master’s degree in Computer Sciences from TSI in 2003. The extremely successful entrepreneur has agreed to share some thoughts on leading IT-trends, his dream employees and the role of higher education in shaping the future.
– Valery, what are the most significant trends to shape the development of the IT industry in the following five years, in your opinion?
– I would say Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Tokenized Economies, and Robotics are the trends that will shape the IT industry for not just the next five years, but the next several decades.
– What kind of personal and professional competences are you looking for when recruiting new employees for your company?
– There are quite a few. Bitfury team members must possess the ability to think out of the box and make the impossible possible. They are self-motivated and result-oriented and have an “owner of the company” mindset. They’re constantly self-educating and developing. They are able to work in a team and collaborate. They have a “do good” mindset and are not afraid to dream big. And of course, they always deliver in time what they promised and with extreme attention to detail — because if you are not able to do the little things right, you will never be able to do big things right.
– How would you define the role of higher education in shaping the future?
– I truly believe that education is key to our entire lives, starting on the day we’re born and lasting until the day we die. When we stop educating ourselves, we stop growing. To me, there are three main things that education can and should give to an individual. First, to teach a diverse set of knowledge so we can solve different issues. This doesn’t mean we should become an expert in everything; rather, we just need to know where to find a knowledge base which will help us to find the shortest way to the right solution when we need it. Second, education teaches us how to adapt to fast-changing environments. And third, the most important skill higher education should teach is the skill of collaboration: what is collaboration, why collaboration is important, and how to collaborate.
Bitfury is the world’s leading emerging technologies company headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands. At the beginning of 2020 Bitfury was named to the “Forbes Blockchain 50” list for the second time. To qualify, Blockchain 50 members must be generating no less than $1 billion in revenue annually or be valued at $1 billion or more.
We thank Valery Vavilov for his responsiveness and wish him to be a further successful, active and creative in implementing new ideas!
